


Tea & Romance

by PlainJaneDoe



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:24:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlainJaneDoe/pseuds/PlainJaneDoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an unusual incident in a London alleyway, confusing feelings arise at the worst possible time. John/Sherlock. Angst, Slash, Smut & Fluff; just how you all like it... (I accidentally deleted this, but it's back up now complete with Chapter 9... Sorry!!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a note to say that I do not have a beta and I am not a full-time writer, so please don't expect this to be flawless. I've really loved it, though, so I just hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> PS) I have no idea what I'm doing here with AO3, there may be layout issues, and lack of italics where there should be italics... I apologise.

He could hear his heart beating hard in his ears. Feel the stinging in his lungs. His veins were pumping battery acid as he once again found himself racing through the streets of London at 100mph, on foot no less. But he couldn’t complain, didn’t want to, he loved it. Being able to run like this felt like a gift. He had been given part of his life back and he owed it all to the tall dark blur who was racing alongside him. He’d had enough danger and excitement to last him a lifetime over the years but this; this was in a completely different _league_ , and he bloody loved it, of course he did.

It was fast approaching midnight and the alleyways they were racing through were deserted and dark. It never ceased to amaze John quite how Sherlock managed to navigate his way around London so well; night or day. He didn’t need sight to be able to see when he was in London. It was his home and he knew every single inch of it perfectly.

Sherlock swooped sharply down a fresh path to the left, so suddenly that John carried on running straight ahead until that familiar baritone echoed along the bricks, “This way, John!” guiding him the right way, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, this sudden left turn...  
He skidded on the dirty alley floor beneath his feet, catching himself with a hand on the ground before sprinting like an athlete off the starting blocks back in the opposite direction, even faster now in order to catch back up, “A little warning would be nice in future,” he breathed, feeling his lungs sting a little at having to breath rapidly AND talk. His having to slow down messed up his rhythm and his endurance was wearing thin but he pushed onward regardless, he was still a soldier at heart after all.

He didn’t even know where he was going, definitely didn’t know where he was, so it was imperative he keep Sherlock in his line of sight at all times, he knew all too well that there was no way the detective would slow down for him to catch up. It was hard to believe that it was only 2 hours ago that he was sitting quite comfortably at home, blogging about the dead end in their case. Sherlock had been lying on the sofa, fingers steepled staring at the ceiling. This wasn’t unusual for him. As much as he loathed the lack of direction when case leads dried up, he loved the puzzle that this new conundrum would produce.

With a sharp intake of breath, Sherlock suddenly sat bolt upright, his eyes flickering with the beginning threads of what was likely to be an ingenious idea. “Give me your phone,” he said suddenly. John had come to learn that it was better not to protest, it wasted time, so instead he pulled his phone out of his pocket, with a begrudging sigh, and threw it to Sherlock. His fingers moved like lighting over the keys and before you could say ‘Hold on, your phone is right there’ he was up, coat on and out the door. There was a swift throwing-John’s-phone-back in there too somewhere but John couldn’t quite figure out where...

After scrambling up and sending laptop clattering to the ground, John was out of the door and into the crisp London night air following his companion at break neck speeds once more. In such a short amount of time, they’d trailed a new suspect, antagonised new suspect, gotten into a scuffle with new suspect and lost new suspect within the alleys of London, bringing us just about up to speed. John still hadn’t had chance to actually ask Sherlock who this guy even was and how the hell he had suddenly decided he was the one they were after.  
Up ahead, he could just see a dark blur turn sharply to the right, only just illuminated by distant streetlights. He swerved the corner quickly and stopped abruptly upon there being no Sherlock to be found. No sounds of running, no scrambling over a fence or up a wall, no voice guiding him. Bugger. Now he was lost in an alley somewhere in London he had never been before completely and utterly...

“Bloody hell!” A pale hand grabbed at Johns elbow, pulling him into the shadows, “What the f...”

“Shh,” that voice, it was familiar.

“But..”

“John, quiet,” of course. Sherlock. He’d been lurking in the shadows, back against the wall, waiting. Now John was next to him, back against the wall, one freakishly strong forearm pressed over his chest holding him in place. He held his breath. He could feel the heat radiating through Sherlock’s jacket, through his jacket and into him and it stirred something up within John that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was confusing but not all together unpleasant. His head gave an involuntary jolt as he inwardly shook the thoughts from his head. Now wasn’t the time. Instead he remembered he needed to breath to live, so he should really start doing that again...

Nothing happened for the next two minutes until finally he felt Sherlock’s arm tremble and loosen its hold ever so slightly, John decided now might be a good time to do some interrogating of him own. He opened his mouth to speak but was rudely cut off.

“No John, now most definitely is not the right time to talk, so _please. Be. Quiet._ ” John huffed slightly but immediately felt the burning heat of Sherlock’s glare at his continuing attempts to break the deathly silence.

Suddenly a figure rounded the corner and began walking tentatively down the alley they were in. Before John could take another breath, Sherlock had shifted his position from next to him to in front of him, opening his coat and covering him completely. A small squeak was about to escape from John’s lips, but Sherlock had obviously anticipated it; clamping a hand over his mouth and pressing his entire body flush against him, firmly against the wall.

‘Oh bloody fuck’ John thought to himself, ‘what have you got yourself into this time, John Watson’.

The figure passed them quietly, having no idea they were even there. John could just about see the man and recognised him as the same one from earlier, who they’d gotten into a rather out-of-the-blue brawl with.

In a typically Sherlock fashion, he removed his hand from John’s mouth and leapt onto the man, sending him crashing to the ground with a painful face plant to the concrete. John stood frozen in the spot watching him struggle with the man until Sherlock finally broke the silence with a strangled “Bloody hell, John, a little help would _very_ nice right now,” finally he shook his head, got the feeling back in his legs and came back down to earth after such unexpected close contact. He cleared his throat quietly before running over to help.

After some minutes struggling, Sherlock finally had the man subdued just as Lestrade rounded the corner with a team of his officers.  
“Who’s this?” he said, motioning his phone in the direction of the man on the ground, being carefully sat on by Sherlock.

John shrugged and waved his arms around a bit. Honestly? He had no idea. Everything that had happened was just another one of those random adventures Sherlock dragged him on.

Sherlock looked up at John, then at Lestrade, then back to John, “Really? Neither of you have any idea? Not one single, solitary inkling as to this man’s identity?”

John and Lestrade exchanged a sheepish glance, a look most commonly used whenever something was astoundingly clear to Sherlock, yet positively unfathomable to everybody else.

Sherlock sighed angrily before getting up off the man so that Lestrade’s officers could take him away. “That man, is Robert Creber, our vic’s brother and our vic’s murderer”

“Sherlock, our Vic doesn’t have a brother,”

“Yes...” Sherlock straightened out and brushed the dirt from his knees, “She does, and that is him,”

Another bewildered sideways glance took place between Lestrade and John.

At this, Sherlock threw his arms up and stalked off, whirling around at the last possible moment to explain himself, the urge to look exceedingly intelligent too strong to pass up, “Honestly, I could not even begin to imagine what it must be like to have brains that function so slowly. Check the pockets, check the shoes, search his home. You’ll find the murder weapon stashed in a black bin bag buried in the Garden next to a dead Hydrangea. Run a DNA test if you must, but if you simply looked into his eyes you would see that that man is her brother and he killed her for the wealth her Father left her in his will, a will he was not a part of because of his Mother’s adultery and...”  
“Sherlock, for Christ’s sake, how can we even place him at...”

“Check. The. Shoes. Come on, I’ve told you where you need to look, now look,” and with that, he was off again, pulling his coat tightly around him, hands in pockets, stalking back home.

Lestrade gave an exasperated sigh before walking in the opposite direction, leaving John stood completely alone in the middle of an alleyway. He stood perfectly still for a few long seconds, watching Sherlock leave and thinking carefully about the past 10 minutes. It was then it dawned on him that he couldn’t very well stand here all night, so quickly jogged after him until they were walking in line with each other in complete silence.

“I can hear you thinking, John, what is it?”

“What are they going to find? When they look for what you told them to?”

“On the shoes they will find traces of the vic’s garden from where he climbed through the flowerbed to get to her window. In his pocket – her necklace that was missing from her neck, her murder wasn’t...”

“Necklace?”

“Yes John, there was a distinct mark around her neck, often caused by excessive wear of jewellery without taking it off or cleaning it. It was obvious a family heirloom or something of the like so it wasn’t likely that she’d left it at home, she’d always worn it, 24/7”

“And why did he take it?”

Sherlock continued to stare forward, flinching slightly at John’s persistent questioning, “As I was saying before you interrupted, her murder wasn’t deliberate it was impulse, he hadn’t planned it and was therefore a mistake. He didn’t take it as a trophy, he took it because he regretted it, because he wanted to keep a part of her, because he wanted a part of the family he always wanted to be a part of,”  
“And the murder weapon in the garden? How did you know it was there?”

“His fingernails of course, how else?”

John decided not to question further, despite the fact he still had many unanswered questions. He could see Sherlock was getting frustrated, so instead they walked together in complete silence back to 221B Baker Street.

xXx

It was approaching 3am when they finally got home. Sherlock strolled in, peeling off the spent nicotine patches he’d plastered his forearm with hours earlier and flopped down in his usual chair, legs long and outstretched in front of him, arms lying limply out to the sides and his head titled back, eyes shut. John stood carefully studied him like this. He felt a small shiver run through him as he followed the lines of his neck over his shoulders and down his arms. He was perfectly structured; everything about him was a work of art.

“You’re staring at me, John,” his voice was deep and sleepy as it rumbled through him. John averted his eyes to the mantle and instead focussed his attentions on the knife holding a stack of letters in place.

John decided not to respond. Instead he slipped into the Kitchen and popped the Kettle on. He placed his palms flat on the grungy countertop (an unusual shade of brown following a week long experiment by the detective) and tried not to think. It wasn’t working; however, as his mind quite rudely forced him back to the scene in the alleyway. He wondered why he’d done it, why he suddenly found himself pressed flat against a dirty alley wall with one Sherlock Holmes pressed quite firmly up against him. Why had he done it? Why could he have possibly decided...  
“You’re wearing a white shirt,” came that voice again. John turned slowly to find Sherlock leaning up against the arch way, his piercing gaze penetrating his head and reading his mind. It was always very unnerving when he did that.

“Come again?”

“You’re wearing a white shirt. My clothes are dark. We were in the shadows but your white shirt would have given you away so I covered you before Creber saw you,”

Silence. John couldn’t help feel the tiniest bit disappointed at such a practical excuse, but mentally slapped himself before cutting that confusing trail of thought. Surely he should be feeling relieved not disappointed?

“Oh, OK, that’s fine, completely fine, I wasn’t wondering, I knew that, it’s OK,” John met Sherlock’s eyes. He could feel heat rising upward from his feet and he cursed inwardly at himself. Why on earth was he nervous? But more importantly, why on earth was he acting like an awkward school girl? John broke away from his flat mate’s intense stare and instead busied himself with tea making.

He heard Sherlock return to his seat, where he would likely fall asleep that evening, and only relaxed completely when he’d escaped to his room to be alone to think.

“John Watson,” he whispered to himself in the dark, “What the bloody hell are you thinking,”


	2. Chapter 2

John couldn’t sleep. He’d been lying flat out in bed, wide awake for the past 2 hours. He’d been forcing his mind onto mundane topics in desperation, hoping that he would fall asleep without thinking too much but his plan failed miserably. 2 hours and he’d found himself thinking about Sherlock 6 times. _6 times._ That’s far too much for one evening, most definitely. He rolled over and onto his front; burying his face into the pillow and letting out an incoherent string of swear words.

It was then he heard a loud crash and a muffled explosion, no doubt coming from their Kitchen, or more appropriately, Sherlock’s Laboratory. John sighed, it was bad enough this man was keeping him awake mentally, now he was keeping him awake physically too, and there was no way he could resist the temptation of setting off to investigate.

He padded downstairs cautiously, hovering around the doorway considering what he might find. Perhaps the flat was on fire again... or maybe something putrid was now covering every square inch of the Kitchen, or maybe... It was awfully quiet in there... John sudden felt a sickly flutter in his stomach, _What if he’s hurt? Or worse, what if he’s..._

As if he had been deducing the sound of John’s thoughts on the air, Sherlock suddenly whipped the door open scaring John shitless. He could smell something burning and could see the faintest hint of smoke curling around the detective (that meant the flat was on fire again). It was then that John noticed Sherlock was shirtless and glaring at him, not because he was angry, but because he was reading his every movement.

John shuffled uncomfortably and took a step backwards, clearing his throat and averting his eyes, cursing inwardly at the confusing sensation currently taking place in the very pit of his stomach.

“John,” Sherlock broke the silence that had quickly become awkward by way of his usual monotone greeting.

It was then John dared to tear his eyes away from the unusual brown/green stain on the wall above the skirting board back to Sherlock’s face and _Oh, bloody hell..._ it was at this moment in time that it struck John how deliciously dishevelled and completely gorgeous Sherlock looked right now. His face was partially covered in what looked like black soot which continued down his neck and to a V at his chest (obviously where his shirt had been). Neck perfectly structured in every possible way and skin taught over his collarbone (likely because the detective hadn’t eaten since Tuesday...). By now, John had given in to a far more powerful emotion currently raging through his body, allowing his confusion to take a back seat. In these short few seconds, he had taken in as much as Sherlock’s upper form as he felt he could feasibly get away with before finally allowing his eyes to fall down over his left shoulder and over his arm... his arm... his arm looked...  
“What the hell have you been doing?”

Sherlock broke his intense stare for a second to look over John’s shoulder, contemplating his response, before continuing to stare right back into his head, “I was conducting an experiment...”

“I can see that,”

Sherlock took a deep breath in, as if he was about to sigh, but his exhale never followed, “I was conducting an experiment and I... my shirt happened to catch fire,”

Doctor mode now fully activated, John stepped forward again and immediately began to examine the large deep red mark that travelled from shoulder to forearm. It felt hot to the touch, but not serious, “Idiot...” he mumbled as he took Sherlock by the wrist and pulled him over into the Kitchen.

“Stop looking so concerned John, it’s nothing, it could barely even be considered first degree,”

“What the bloody hell are you doing conducting experiments at 5 o clock in the morning?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Sherlock fidgeted uncomfortably on the spot, seemingly now increasingly aware of his lack of shirt.

John proceeded to rummage through the cupboards and various experiments that were strewn haphazardly about the place, stepping around the now blackened (and more worryingly, smoking) dishwasher, pulling the cleanest looking tea-towel he could see from under a forgotten tea tray. “So you thought you’d wake me up and try to kill yourself, all at once? Well, thank you, that’s very kind of you to think of including me, perhaps the next time you can’t sleep you could flood the place and have me up playing life guard, complete with sodding whistle and...”

“Oh come off it, John, you weren’t even asleep. You and I both know that since the moment you came in and hurried yourself away to bed you’ve been lying awake thinking, so if you were planning on making me feel guilty for giving you a reason to stop torturing yourself, you needn’t bother. Honestly, John, you really should know better,”

Whilst Sherlock was being Sherlock, John had proceeded to rinse the tea towel under the cold tap and was now thinking carefully about how he was going to go about denying this, “I was not awake...” very poorly, it seemed, and he knew it. He attempted to mask his feeble attempt at fooling Sherlock Holmes by quite aggressively slapping the wet cloth to his flatmates bicep and holding it in place, resulting in a small flinch but nothing more. After some long seconds, Sherlock hesitantly placed a hand over John’s, which held its trapped position for the briefest of moments before pulling away and retreating with its owner to face the sink.

“You have dark circles under your eyes which tells me you’ve not closed them for longer than 5 minutes since you got home and therefore haven’t been to sleep yet. Your hair is a lot messier than it usually is first thing in a morning, particularly at the sides where you’ve been tossing and turning. Your shirt is creased and I know you well enough to know that it’s not simply because you haven’t ironed it because you’re a control freak with your laundry. Your...”

“Stop it,” John slammed his palms on the cold and slightly damp work surface in front of him, “Stop analyzing me, I am not one of your experiments and I refuse to be treated like one,”

Silence fell once more as neither man moved nor spoke. After some long minutes, John heard Sherlock wordlessly retreat to his spot on the sofa. John sighed and shook his head, trying to shake his mind blank but failing miserably.  
After another couple of minutes, he too retreated back up to his bedroom for another hour of wide awake thinking before exhaustion finally set in and allowed him to sleep.

xXx

It was 10am when John finally awoke. Surrounded by complete silence, he knew he was home alone and it was then that memories of the night (or rather morning) came flooding back to him. He groaned and rolled over, trying to escape it but he couldn’t. He actually felt a little bit guilty. Analyzing and deducing was what defined Sherlock, it was like telling Mycroft to stop being terrifying, or Anderson to stop being such a prick. No, John Watson knew he’d made a grave error for being so angry at Sherlock for being, well, Sherlock.

After some long moments thinking about what he might say when Sherlock got home, John eventually heaved himself out of bed and went about his usual morning routine.

It was an hour later when John found himself standing in the Kitchen drinking obligatory morning tea, scanning over a 2 month old newspaper that was still sitting on the side. Nearby was a very crumpled and somewhat badly singed grey shirt, hopelessly tossed to one side after rather rudely catching on fire hours earlier. The dishwasher had stopped smoking (Thank God) but was now very much out of action... Not that it was regularly used for washing dishes anyway, oh no, Sherlock always seemed to have far greater plans for that tortured appliance.

John sighed and rolled his head. It was far too quiet. He could almost see how Sherlock got so crazy when he had nothing to do. John Watson was absolutely bored out of his mind and he’d only been up for an hour. He wondered where Sherlock was. It wasn’t typical of him to go gallivanting off somewhere without indulging in dragging John along for the ride.

Without thinking, John pulled out his phone and tapped out a quick _‘Where are you? JW’_ before hitting the ‘Send’ button.  
Before he even had time to return his phone to his pocket, the front door slammed and that reassuring, yet somewhat frustrating, baritone rang through the hall, “I’m right here, John, why, where are you?” John rolled his eyes as Sherlock rounded the corner, handful of post in one hand, square black shopping bag and keys in the other. He tossed the bag onto the side and immediately turned on his heel to head back out.

John stood perfectly still for a moment, wondering whether he should follow, but it seemed Sherlock was content to answer that question for him, slowly poking his head back round the corner, peering inquisitively into the Kitchen, “Coming?”.  
John nodded towards the black paper bag that had now toppled over, “What’s in the bag?”

Sherlock revealed himself fully from behind the wall with a somewhat disappointed expression plastered across his face, “A new shirt, John,” there was a tone to his voice that suggested he was gravely disappointed that his powers of deduction had not yet rubbed off on his flat mate “One of mine got a little bit burned last night, as I’m sure you can recall. Now are you coming or not?”

Uncrossing his arms, John made for the door, following Sherlock out and instantly into a waiting taxi. “Victoria Tower Gardens please, as quick as you like,” Sherlock sat back into the seat and began looking wistfully out of the window.   
John shuffled uncomfortably, wondering what he should say. The silence between them was not tense, but John still didn’t like it when the air wasn’t quite clear.

“I can hear you thinking again, John, you should really stop that before you pull a muscle,” Sherlock turned his head to face him dead on, the corners of his mouth very slightly upturned.

John breathed an almost nervous laugh as he visibly relaxed and just like that, the air was clear as day. “So, Victoria Tower Gardens?”

“We have been summoned,” Sherlock said, almost ominously, returning his attentions to his surroundings once more.

“A body?”

“Oh yes,” John could tell from the vigour in his voice and the difficulty Sherlock was having keeping the smile from his face that the prospect of a brand new puzzle was ridiculously tantalizing.

John smirked as he studied his companions face carefully, “You’re loving this aren’t you,”

“Every second,” came his response, locking his intense gaze with John’s once more for a fraction of a second as a small smile finally broke free. John’s heart skipped a beat very much against his will, but he couldn’t help but smile lazily back as they made their way towards their destination in comfortable silence.


	3. Chapter 3

When they reached the scene of the crime, Lestrade was looming over a bedraggled figure on the ground with a grave almost sickly expression on his face. Sherlock strode confidently over to the fresh puzzle that awaited him, only to be greeted with a rather unpleasant surprise.

John caught sight of Sherlock’s eyes widening in his peripheral vision as they darted over the body on the ground in front of them.

“What...”

Sherlock was cut off by Lestrade, “Robert Creber,”

There was a brief silence before Sherlock obliterated it “Why wasn’t he in your custody?” he snapped suddenly, “What the bloody hell is he doing dead?” He motioned angrily towards the man on the ground.

Lestrade shifted on the spot, he looked uncharacteristically sheepish in fact, choosing his words carefully, “He was bailed. I had a couple of the boys keep an eye on him but they... lost him,”

Sherlock inhaled sharply and John almost flinched, expecting him to explode any second into a fit of lengthy, insulting words (Sherlock tended to use unnecessarily large words when he was angry, he was, however, always very articulate in the manner of which he belittled those who frustrated him). Instead of the impending maelstrom of vocabulary John was expecting, Sherlock instead held his breath in, crouching down to take a closer look at the body on the ground.

“John,” he said after long moments with a flick of his head and John was all too aware of what that meant. He, too, joined Sherlock on the ground dampened by rain (and possibly blood) and began to inspect the damage.

Sherlock steepled his hands as he crouched, resting his chin on his thumbs in concentration, eyes darting up and down the body on the ground and occasionally focusing on specific spots. He looked ridiculously attractive when he was all dark and moody and _No, stop that, right now, don’t you dare, John_. John shook his head clear and got down to business.

“Looks like he was beaten within an inch of his life,” John mused as he carefully lifted the man to study underneath him and check his pockets, “Still got his wallet and keys...” he pulled Creber’s pocket contents free and checked his wallet, “No money, some cards missing I think...Maybe a mugging gone wrong?”

Sherlock shook his head, eyes still glued to the body, “No, no, no, not right, all wrong, this was not a mugging, if anything it was made to look like one, rather poorly in fact,” John could hear the disgust in his voice at the calibre of today’s criminal, pathetically attempting to feign murders as muggings, not expecting the world’s only Consulting Detective to come along and rather insolently mess up their plans. “The money was taken but not the wallet, then the wallet was placed back in his pocket, would you say this sort of behaviour is commonplace?”

“Well, no...”

“Of course not, you’d take the whole wallet, or at most you’d take the money and ditch the wallet somewhere, you wouldn’t go to the effort of actually putting it back in his pocket...”

“But what if he just wasn’t carrying any money or his cards?”

“Of course he was, we’re in London, John, you are aware of that aren’t you? You venture out with nothing and you’re asking for trouble, it costs money just to walk down the street nowadays,” Sherlock was getting all riled up again and as much as it killed John to admit that he really quite liked Sherlock’s _why-can’t-you-see-that-it’s-so-blood-obvious_ face, he decided it was best just to move on.

“OK, well... there’s blunt force trauma to the head, someone really bloody cracked him one with something and that’s likely what killed him,”

“Good, keep going,”

“The wound on his head is pretty severe and there definitely should be a lot more blood around than there is...”

“Excellent, John, very good and what does that tell us” more of a statement than a question, typically Sherlock.

“That he was dumped here, not killed here,” John said, almost cautiously.

“Very good, John, so very glad you’re learning,” John was rather taken aback by this sudden onslaught of almost-praise but remained silent, trying to freeze his features so as not to give away his surprise.

“No signs of a struggle so he was attacked by surprise...”

“And that means..?”

John ran his tongue over his lips thoughtfully, “That he potentially knew his attacker”

Sherlock nodded very slightly before standing suddenly and whipping out his phone, no doubt researching something that was crucial to the case in hand.

“Are you two quite finished with today’s lesson? Because some of us actually have work to do,”

“Anderson, what have I told you about speaking in public,” Sherlock didn’t look up from his phone as he spoke, “Or thinking for that matter... In fact, it would do me a great service if you kept a minimum distance of at least a mile between us at all times so that my mind isn’t continuously assaulted by your inane thought process,”

John resisted a smirk (quite well he thought) before cutting in to prevent further arguing, “Can you see anything else?”  
Sherlock looked up from his phone with a small barely-there smile before returning his attentions to his phone, “The ground is damp, but he is not, suggesting he hasn’t been here long. He was killed around the same time he was dumped, as his body temperature has not yet significantly dropped. There are marks on his wrists suggesting he was tied up within the last 4 hours. He was being interrogated, or perhaps punished, he likely knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. There is a fine dust in his hair so he wasn’t in a particularly well kept environment, but not likely a home, probably a warehouse or some form of storage area. There is very slight chemical burning on his shoes which suggests he was being held in an industrious or hazardous environment. Judging from A: his body temperature and B: his not having been killed here he was not moved far from the actual crime scene, A x B = C: Distance travelled. The killer could have walked but who walks freely around London with a body? Nobody. He drove here, so where is there a warehouse with uses primarily for storing or using chemicals within a local radius calculated from an approximate driving distance, A x B + C =...” with a dramatic flick of his wrist, Sherlock revealed the means of his lightning fast research, “C&C Specialist Storage, owned and managed primarily by...”

John had already studied the information now in front of him carefully and cut Sherlock off with his own deduction, “Michael Creber... The dead Father?”

“Precisely.” there was a gleam in his intense glare that caused John to shuffle awkwardly under the heat of it. With that, Sherlock once again turned and stalked away. John smiled weakly at Lestrade and motioned towards the fast disappearing detective and jogged along after him.

“That was unbelievable,” tumbled out of his mouth before John could stop himself. He was thankful they were now well and truly out of earshot at least. “Sorry, I just... You never cease to amaze me,” _Oh bloody stupid shitting hell, you actually went and said that out loud didn’t you?_ John blushed furiously as he heard the silence hang in the air after he spoke. He refused to look at Sherlock as they continued out of the park, trying to act as normal as physically possible. Like he wasn’t cringing to high heaven as his words replayed over and over in his head tormenting him.

He could just about make out the smirk on Sherlock’s face from the corner of his eye, that bloody arrogant, all-knowing, genius smirk. “John,” Sherlock stopped so suddenly that John actually carried on another 3 steps before realising he was wandering off alone with no idea where he was going. He turned to face him and stared straight through him, determined to keep up the casual facade.

“Yep?” he shoved his hands in his pockets and poured all his concentration into looking absolutely, completely normal. The resulting appearance was not only very amusing, but actually had the complete opposite effect.

“What’s wrong” Another stated non-question.

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?”

Sherlock scanned eyes over his friend’s face and John could almost feel him inside his head. They stood in perfect silence for a few moments before Sherlock finally, without any warning whatsoever, continued onward, hailing down a taxi as he went.

John couldn’t help feeling like Sherlock knew something, feeling like he’d just read his mind and discovered all these very strange and confusing feelings that John had been harbouring since probably the moment Sherlock left John speechless with how well he knew him despite the fact they had just met. It was unnerving and mind blowing and it made him feel completely and utterly vulnerable, but a tiny part of him couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that he had been studied so carefully. It had been a long time since anyone had actually made accurate assumptions about him. With his cane he was just a cripple to most, but Sherlock saw through it all and read him like an open book, knew his past and his present all from a few minor details. This man, this arrogant, self-centred, self-destructive, insane, brilliant man had destroyed John and rebuilt him in the space of 24 hours and John couldn’t have been happier with the end result. Apart from all the confusing feelings of course, that was an unexpected addition, most definitely.

John tumbled into the cab after Sherlock, “We’re seriously getting a cab? It’s probably not even 20 minutes away on foot”  
“And we’d potentially be giving the killer an extra 15 minutes to destroy evidence.”

“How are we even going to get in there?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes dramatically and something told John that things were probably about to get slightly illegal...

xXx

10 minutes later John found himself stalking the hallways of C&C Specialist Storage alongside a very smug looking Sherlock Holmes, who had managed to not only get them into the building, but also into the right department, less than 5 minutes after having entered the building, a new personal best he was sure. It was really quite amazing what that well structured face and shammed flirtatious smile did to women (much to the annoyance of one J. Watson) and he had unashamedly flirted his way into chemical storage without so much as a whisker of suspicion.

“You didn’t have to give her your number,” John said, hoping that his slight-annoyance came across as concern for leading the woman on, not jealously.

“I didn’t give her my number,” he said blandly.

“Then whose number did you give her?”

Sherlock looked over to him as they walked for a brief second before returning his attention to the room they were heading towards, “Yours, of course,”

“Oh right, of course. Of course you did,” John shook his head, but he was used to this and a small part of him wouldn’t be without it.

Sherlock stopped abruptly in front of a large metal door and scanned the card he had managed to obtain from the receptionist (on the grounds that he was Mr Creber’s astoundingly gorgeous P.A, coming to collect something on his behalf of grave importance that would lead to his firing should he return without it). The door clicked and opened slowly and John heard Sherlock’s breathing quicken ever so slightly.

“What?” John followed Sherlock’s eye line to find he was staring grimly at a smear of blood on the door frame that had now been revealed. The room was darkened and smelled strongly of chemicals. No doubt Sherlock was currently busying himself identifying precisely which ones.

John heard the door click closed and Sherlock sprang to life “Find the light would you, John,” he said quietly before swooping out into the darkness in front of them.

John fumbled around the walls, blindly searching for a light switch. He could hear Sherlock’s shoes on the floor echoing off the walls, pressuring him to search faster. Silence fell temporarily as he continued to feel around, somewhat sporadically in fear of what he might find. It was then that he suddenly felt warm breath on his neck and the overwhelming sense that someone was behind him. So as not to let this person catch on, he continued on his mission to find the light whilst also slowly reaching for his gun. Just millimetres away, he felt a strong hand and slender fingers wrapping around his wrist. “Something is distracting you and I want to know what it is,”

“Jesus Christ, you scared the...”

“John,” Sherlock cut him off, he was obviously not going to accept John’s attempts to deflecting this sudden curiosity.   
John thought carefully about what he was going to say, ‘Well, the truth is Sherlock, I actually quite fancy you and I have no idea why’ _no, not that_ , ‘It’s nothing, I’ve just been having these confusing...’ _no, definitely not_ , ‘Well, just recently, I’ve found myself helplessly attracted to you’ _No, no, no, **no**. Absolutely not_. There was no easy way to say it. John didn’t even know if he should say it. Perhaps he was confusing appreciation with affection. What happened to BAMF John? Why was he letting this get the better of him...

“John,” Sherlock repeated, breaking him from his thought induced trance. He felt the space around him close in as Sherlock took a small step closer.

John was still facing the wall although his search for the light had ceased. He was finding it increasingly difficult to think coherently with Sherlock’s form pressed so closely up against him. No, this definitely wasn’t just appreciation; this was something a whole lot more. _Oh bloody hell_. He wasn’t ready for this, not here, not now and not yet.

“Look, Sherlock, I told you before...”

Sherlock pressed a free hand to John’s waist and whipped him round to face him before pushing him forcefully back up against the wall. He gripped his wrist above his head and allowed his other palm to rest on the wall next to John’s waist. It was almost pitch black but John was convinced he could see those eyes burning into his as he loomed over him. “You’re lying” he said matter-of-factly.

“Well you’re the Consulting Detective aren’t you? If you’re so convinced something’s wrong, why don’t you bloody figure it out?” he couldn’t tell you where that came from. He’d been trying so hard to convince Sherlock that for once he was wrong about something and there he bloody went and gave him the green light to continue his theorising. He tried desperately to free his hand from Sherlock’s vice like grip, but he failed miserably. He instead decided to try another tack as he continued to fumble desperately for the light switch, praying that light would somehow end this awkward conversation  
He could feel warm breath on his jaw as Sherlock leaned in closer. John could hear his heart racing in his ears and he knew it would only be a matter of time before Sherlock... “Your heart rate has just increased from 65 beats per minute to 95”

“How can you even...”

Sherlock shushed him and closed further space between them, leaving barely millimetres. John suddenly had an overpowering sense of déjà vu, back to the night where Sherlock had done this exact same sort of thing, except on this occasion he wasn’t shielding him from view, he was trying to get closer, provoke a reaction, climb inside his head and find outside exactly what John was thinking exactly when he was thinking it. John swallowed hard and willed himself not to react any further. A rise in heart rate could be explained away, but he was not going to give Sherlock the satisfaction of discovering other dead giveaways.

John continued to hunt frantically for the light switch and just as he felt something brush lightly against his lips he found it. Light flooded the room, blinding him temporarily. He felt fingers loosen from around his wrist and the warmth he had felt radiating through him vanished. When his eyes fully adjusted to the light, he was exactly where Sherlock had left him, except Sherlock had disappeared to the other side of the room, attentions now fully returned to the case in hand.   
John stood completely frozen for a moment, one hand still above his head, the other flat on the light switch. He wondered if he’d done the right thing and he felt his heart sink very much without permission at the thought he’d just stopped something that he actually very much (albeit secretly) wanted. He finally let his hand fall from above his head and instead utilized it to rub his eyes, causing small explosions of colour to burst behind them as he contemplated exactly what just happened.

Sherlock, on the other hand, continued as if nothing had happened, “Marks on the floor indicating signs of a struggle, no visible blood but...” he shifted a few boxes around to reveal a small pool of burghandy liquid, “Amateurs...” he whispered, continuing to fly about the room, mentally making notes and committing the scene to memory, “Rope in the corner that will contain Robert Creber’s epithelials and possibly the epithelials of our killer,” he took one last look around him before retrieving his phone from his pocket. He strode out of the room texting furiously, not having directly said another word to John.

By the time John had looked up, Sherlock had disappeared completely. John quickly left the room, ran out past the receptionist and out into the street, but Sherlock was long gone. He’d left John behind to fend for himself, once again. John sighed and threw his head back, both hands covering his face letting out a muffled groan of embarrassment which did nothing to ease the anxious angry butterflies wreaking havoc in his stomach. After minutes that felt like hours, John finally got up the courage to hail a cab and make his way back home to 221B.


	4. Chapter 4

It was raining by the time John got home. He’d walked up to the front door (raced up to it in fact) ready for action, key inches from the lock, ready to face the oblivion... then promptly turned on his heel and ran back down the street before anyone saw him. He wandered London aimlessly, popped into work (only to be sent home again) and browsed mindlessly around a newsagents (much of his time spent staring at a box of nicotine patches). He’d wasted hour upon hour until finally, as the light of the daytime was just disappearing behind the London skyline; he decided to bite the bullet.

He flew into that flat almost in a rage, he’d spent far too much time mulling things over and he had come to the conclusion that now was the time for action. He was ready to take him on, ready to confront the awkwardness, ready to confront the unusual feelings and ready to do a lot of sweary shouting about his personal space and the lack therein. He practically kicked the door down and strode in confidently, fully expecting to see his friend sitting in his chair sipping tea or rifling through a file.

“Sherlock, we need to...” he paused and looked around, confused “Talk...” The flat was empty. _Bugger it._

He padded cautiously around searching for his flat mate, but alas, no such luck. He assumed that the detective had gone flying off on another lead as he slumped back into his armchair. He was disappointed but he visibly relaxed now that his brain had caught up with him post storming-into-the-flat. That was until he saw something very unusual. Lying on top of an open book was Sherlock’s phone. Now that was just plain odd, very odd. In fact, it was incredibly suspicious. John immediately shot back up and dropped down onto the floor next to it. He stared at it for a few moments, almost scared to touch it through fear that Sherlock might swoop around the corner any second to retrieve it.

Confident in the knowledge that Sherlock would never ever forget his phone (not even accidentally) he quickly deduced that this was suspicious, and therefore, a clue.

He picked it up and unlocked it to find what appeared to be a random sequence of numbers. _Oh great, you’ve left me something to figure out, no pressure._ John stared long and hard at the numbers on the screen until the backlights flickered off and left him staring blankly at his own reflection. He sighed and began to look around for something else. _You know I’m not the genius here; you wouldn’t have made this too difficult for me_. His eyes finally fell on the open book that he initially disregarded. He over turned it and studied the page. _No further clues here. Oh you stupid silly bastard, why have you left me with... wait._ It suddenly began to click into place. He’d seen this before... He frantically started counting letters with the numbers he’d been given. _14.... M... 2, I.... 37..... C._ He pulled his own phone out and started to tap out the letters Sherlock had left behind. _17... H... 41... A. How the bloody hell did you manage this?_

Slowly, the message formed in front of his eyes; “MICHAEL CREBER ALIVE HE FOUND ME C&C”. _C &C, why do I know that- ohhh..._ John had no idea how this had even happened, how Sherlock had created such a complex and creative clue, how the hell he even knew where he’d be taken, but his bewilderment quickly diminished when he remembered that this was none other than Sherlock Holmes (or _Sherlock bloody stupid shitty Holmes_ as he had become known in John’s very sweary mind of recent hours) and Sherlock Holmes could do just about bloody anything if he put his mind to it.

He charged up the stairs two at a time and into his room, pulling his gun from his drawer and slipping it behind his back and into the waistband of his jeans. The cold metal against his skin caused goosebumps to erupt against his skin as he paused to contemplate what was about to happen. He was going to go flying out of the house to rescue Sherlock, once again, from whatever perils he was currently facing (and didn’t Sherlock face _a lot_ of perils...), he was going to put his life on the line for a man he harboured quite unusual and unique feelings for and he was going to do it all without even thinking twice about whether he should. He nodded to no one but himself and raced out of the door.

xXx

After jumping into a taxi and driving at breakneck speeds through London (taxi drivers are surprisingly easy to bribe when asked to do out a little bit of illegal driving) John finally arrived at C&C Specialist Storage once more. His breathing was harsh as the rain beat down on him, plastering his hair to his forehead and soaking him through. He felt a shiver run through him as he raced up the stairs to the entrance, that familiar shiver he got when faced with danger. The only difference now was the fact he was facing this danger completely alone with no plan whatsoever.

The building had long since closed so he began circling the perimeter, looking for a way in. After finding the gated back entrance locked he channelled his army skills and clambered up a wall leading to a probable staff entrance. He wasn’t in the least bit graceful as he did this and he was glad Sherlock wasn’t around to witness his scrambling and berate him for it. Sherlock seemed to float weightlessly over obstacles with disgusting grace and poise. _Probably because there’s nothing to him... Skinny bastard._ John ignored these fleeting thoughts and proceeded onward in his mission. Now was not the time for musing over Sherlock’s idiotic idiosyncrasies.

He made it into the building and towards his destination without detection. There was a serious lack of security patrolling the building that night, likely down to the fact, John deduced, that Michael Creber owned this building and he wanted it all to himself. This little deduction sickened John somewhat, and was the reason behind his sudden increase in pace.  
It took John less than two minutes to find his way back to that room. The room where he’d found himself just hours earlier, pushed hard up against a wall with a detective, made up entirely of lines, limbs and angles pressed flush against him monitoring his increase in heart rate; lips millimetres away from lips. John swallowed hard as he pressed fingertips against the hard metal, pushing it lightly and creating a small gap for him to pear through.

The first thing he saw was Sherlock; back to the door, sitting comfortably with hands tied behind his back. In front of him, also back to the door, hand pinching the bridge between his eyes, was what appeared to be a very much alive Michael Creber - a surprisingly burly man in a deep blue suit, clearly contemplating his next move. John instantly made all the connections that Sherlock had probably made hours ago, and took this opportunity to slip into the room and hide behind a stack of boxes whilst he figured out what to do next.

He stilled his breathing and slowly peered through the smallest of gaps to keep watch on the developing situation. Michael Creber turned, now rubbing his jaw in contemplation.

“How did you figure it out, then?” Creber said suddenly, cracking his knuckles as he did so.

“Well, you hardly made it difficult for me,” Sherlock sighed.

Creber laughed and turned away, rolling his head on his shoulders, “Enlighten me,”

“Why did you do it? Why did you murder him?”

A sickening crack resonated through the room as Creber punched Sherlock squarely in the jaw. Sherlock hunched to the side with a cough, spitting out puddles of crimson. “I’m the one asking questions here, not you,” Creber spat before turning his back once more to shake out his fist and roll his neck once more. John flinched at the crumpled figure in the chair, and took this opportunity to send a quick text to Lestrade whilst preparing to spring out and confront Creber.

“How very Neanderthal. You’re going to pummel me with punches to enforce your own sense of empowerment. Not only are you an amateur but you’re infuriatingly juvenile” Don’t wind him up, you idiot. Sherlock was still hunched over but John saw his eyes move and fall in line with his. He shook his head and John took it as a sign not to interrupt just yet. He considered ignoring him and cracking Creber around the head with his gun, teach him a lesson he’d never forget, but he resisted. He resisted because he knew that despite everything, Sherlock had a plan, he always had a plan. So John remained perfectly still, gun in hand, waiting.

Creber laughed and straightened his collar, “Who exactly do you think you are?” Creber snarled. Sherlock scoffed in that typically arrogant fashion he had become renowned for. Bad move. Creber grabbed Sherlock’s face in his hand and forced his head around to face him, “I’ll tell you what you are. You’re nothing and I _will_ destroy you,” Creber slowly released the detective’s face and returned to his pacing, “Now, are you going to enlighten me, or am I going to have to finish this earlier than expected?”

“I’ll enlighten you. But my reasons for doing so are purely selfish ones,” Sherlock sounded surprisingly calm and together considering the circumstances. He pulled himself back upright and began, “You faked your own death because you had gotten yourself into some terrible debt, hadn’t you? That gambling habit of yours finally got the better of you and you found yourself in hot water with all the wrong kinds of people. You knew you could never get the money together that you needed to keep your daughter safe from the hands of loan sharks and you also knew that you’re life insurance was healthy enough to deal with your little debt problems _and_ keep your daughter afloat. It was all going quite well until your estranged son appeared. Having lived in poverty his entire life it’s only natural he’d want money, after all, you did abandon him for his mother’s mistakes, chose a daughter over a son. You’d always been closer to her, she was older, had the business sense you craved and Robert... Robert was just a disappointment,” Creber flinched at these words but didn’t say a word, not once correcting him, "So, Robert turns up at her house, planning on roughing her up a bit, force her out of the money and finally receive what he believes he’s entitled too only it all goes a little bit awry. He ends up killing her and your life collapses, the one person, the only remaining family you have, murdered by the family you alienated, leaving you completely alone...”

“Shut up...” Creber’s voice was broken and quiet, but Sherlock continued.

“The debt was gone, but so was your daughter and you were angry, of course you were, and you wanted revenge. He’d attacked her then left her there to die...”

“That’s enough,” his voice more forceful. John knew things were about to get ugly, he just hoped to god Sherlock knew what he was doing.

“And for what? He left empty handed, apart from that necklace of course, her necklace, the necklace you wanted back. So you brought him here and you tortured him, punished him, then dumped him. Of course, the Yard beat you too the chase a bit there, they’d already arrested Robert and confiscated the necklace. You were torturing your son for information he didn’t have. He couldn’t tell you where he’d dumped the necklace because he hadn’t. Of course, you didn’t realise this until you’d murdered him. I assume he’d tried to tell you the police had it, but you were too consumed by rage to believe he could possibly be telling the truth. Your daughter and your son in a matter of days, both dead, leaving you alone, broke and with everyone believing you’re dead, just a pathetic old gangster with nobody left and nowhere to go,”

John felt the air escape suddenly from his lungs as Creber snapped, punching him so hard that the force of it tipped the chair over, eliciting a muffled groan from the detective as he collided with the concrete.

“You’ve got it all figured out then haven’t you? And you’re right, I have got nothing, so what’s a man to do when he’s got nothing?”

“Spend the rest of his life in jail.” John revealed himself from his hiding place, gun in hand and perfectly calm; there was no way he could sit through another punch like that.

Creber laughed, seemingly unfazed by this newest development, “Who’s this then, Holmes? You’re boyfriend come to rescue you?”

“I’m not his... that’s not important. Step away from him or I’ll shoot,” John felt adrenaline raging through his veins as he steadied his aim and pushed a finger to the trigger.

“Fine. Shoot me and I’ll shoot him,” Creber pulled a gun out of his pocket before John had chance to react and aimed it squarely at Sherlock’s head.

“No you won’t,” Sherlock said casually, rubbing his cheek along the concrete floor thoughtfully.

“Sherlock, shut up,” John said bluntly, not once removing his icy stare from Creber.

Creber shook out his shoulders and smiled, “No he’s right, I won’t,” he then moved the gun from Sherlock’s head to his own. John could have sworn he heard a mumbled _‘Predictable’_ coming from the crumpled pile of coat on the floor.

“Michael, you don’t have to do this, it doesn’t have to end this way,”

“There’s nothing keeping me here, I’ve got no family, no money, no business; I’ve got nothing. So I’ll ask you again, what’s a man to do when he’s got nothing?”

“Michael...”

John could hear loud footsteps echoing through the corridors, and just as Lestrade and his men burst in through the door, Creber pulled the trigger.

“What the bloody hell happened here?” Lestrade’s voice reverberated around the room, but the tone in his voice suggested he wasn’t all that surprised that they’d gotten themselves into yet another sticky situation.

John knelt down next to Sherlock and untied him before pulling him up onto his feet, “You worked out my clues, John, I’m very impressed,” Sherlock winced as he stood fully and rubbed his cheek ruefully.

“Yeah, well, your powers of deduction must be rubbing off on me,” John said somewhat agitated, taking Sherlock’s face in hand and inspecting the damage. Split lip, imminent bruising to jaw, blood teasing at his nostrils. He looked delectably dishevelled.

“They’re not powers, it’s a science,” Sherlock shook himself free, “I’m fine, stop fussing,”

John cleared his throat “How did you even manage all that? How did you have time to leave me all those clues _and_ figure out where he’d take you?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “It was hardly difficult, John. I knew you’d figure out the numbers clue because we’d come across something similar in the Waterson case. I set the whole thing up before Michael Creber even knew that I...”

“But how did you know?” by this point, Lestrade had joined them whilst his men dealt with the crime scene.

“Firstly, Robert Creber doesn’t know anyone here, not a soul, he doesn’t live round here and he’s been here barely a week. The most contact he’s had has been with the Receptionist at the hotel he’s staying at. Nobody knows him, and nobody would deliberately target him which led me to his supposedly dead Father. It didn’t take a lot of digging to find out Creber had a hefty life insurance package and liked to gamble. Michael Creber would be the only one to hold a grudge against Robert and seeing as he was supposedly dead it was obvious that Creber’s death was all a rouse to pay off his debts and secure his daughter,”

John and Lestrade exchanged a glance that said ‘Did you understand any of that?’ before shaking their heads and letting Sherlock continue.

“Location was easy, an amateur doesn’t find new crime scenes he reuses old ones, Creber is a creature of habit and a business man. He knows what works so he uses it again. I knew he’d want to finish off anyone who knew what he’d done and it didn’t take a whole lot of effort to ensure he knew I was the one loose end, so I set up your clues, John, then I set out wandering London until he found me.”

“Sherlock, have you actually lost your mind? That’s ridiculously dangerous, even for you,”

“It worked didn’t it?”

John shook his head; he could feel his rage building but decided to push through it, “You should see a paramedic,”

“I don’t need a paramedic; you’re my Doctor, aren’t you?”

“Sherlock...”

“No,” Sherlock glared at John, forcing him into a staring contest that caused John’s heart to race in his ears until Lestrade finally cut in.

“Just go home, the pair of you; I’ll speak to you tomorrow,”

Lestrade’s words seemed distant as they continued to stare hard at each other until Sherlock blinked and wordlessly left, soon followed by a rather disgruntled John.

 _Bloody stupid sodding...._

xXx

They reached the flat in record time after a painfully silent walk home. It was still raining but neither of them thought to take a cab. Instead they walked the streets of London home, slowly getting soaked. With every step, John could feel himself getting angrier. Angry that his plan to confront Sherlock went so disastrously wrong, angry that Sherlock had put himself in the line of so much danger.

Sherlock entered the flat first, shedding his coat (now dripping wet) and shaking his head violently, trying to rid it of moisture. John followed soon after, slamming the door behind him and immediately busying himself making tea. Sherlock followed him into the Kitchen but stood silently watching him.

“You’re a bloody idiot, do you know that? You could have been killed,”

“Stop being so dramatic,”

“I am not being dramatic; you’re being an arse,”

“I am not being an arse!”

“Yes,” John whipped around furiously, “Yes, you bloody are. What if I hadn’t have come home? You could be dead right now. It wouldn’t be Creber’s body they’d be cleaning up off the floor, it would be yours,”

“John,”

“I come in and I’m here and I’m ready to give you a bloody good talking to for what happened earlier and you leave me cryptic clues and-- what I don’t get is why couldn’t have just bloody texted me?”

“John,”

“ There were thousands of other ways you could have done this, thousands, and you choose the one most likely to get you killed! Why did you even trust me with such--“

John was rather rudely cut off from his rambling speech by hands weaving into his hair and lips meshing against his. He had absolutely no idea what to do, whether he should say anything, whether he should stop what was happening, but the voices racing through his mind suddenly turned to silence. He’d given up this chance once and he wasn’t about to do it again. He allowed Sherlock entrance and was rewarded with a harsh and bruising kiss that reopened Sherlock’s split lip and caused a volcano of tastes and textures to erupt in John’s mouth. The metallic taste was tinged with the rain, tea and mint and something distinctly Sherlock. Their clothes were still damp and John clutched desperately at Sherlock’s waist, fingers teasing under his shirt at defined hipbones as he allowed himself to get completely lost, but it was all over before it even got started. Sherlock broke the kiss, hands still clutching at John’s hair, foreheads touching, almost gasping for breath as he spoke.

“Because you are the only person in the whole world I trust, John, the only person I would ever dream of holding responsible for my life, the only person who I still can’t figure out and if you stopped thinking so much about everything all the time you might actually figure out that I--”

Sherlock stopped, his breathing was heavy and his eyes were closed. John stared up at him waiting for him to finish, too scared to break the silence, too scared to even breath, his lungs were burning from the lack of oxygen and he could feel his heart thumping a fast rhythm in his ears. He waited and waited but nothing more was said. Sherlock stroked a thumb down John’s face before twisting himself away and leaving the room, leaving John alone once more, confused and bewildered and with no idea what the hell to do next.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for a different perspective...

Sherlock stood quietly in the Kitchen having just shed his coat and given his hair a good shake. The walk home had been deliciously quiet but miserably wet. Nevertheless, the silence and the rain had given him the tools he needed to distract his mind from thoughts of a certain Mr Watson.

Upon entering the Kitchen, his eyes had settled on John as he aggressively made the tea, but his mind was desperately searching for another distraction to drive away the complicated, unfocused thinking. He could have walked away, could have retired to his room and stayed there not having to worry about a thing for 8 hours at the very least, but he was rooted to the spot, completely unable to move. No matter how hard he focussed on other matters, his curiosity for another piece in the puzzle called John always triumphed over every measure of discomfort, and even though a part of him wanted to run away, the other part forced him to stay exactly where he was and ride out the impending maelstrom of complicated and confusing emotions for as long as he could stand without losing control of the situation. _Just think of it as an experiment._

“You’re a bloody idiot, do you know that? You could have been killed,”

He had expected this as an opening statement; very predictable. It took him less than a second to respond in his usual understanding and sympathetic manner, “Stop being so dramatic,”

“I am not being dramatic; you’re being an arse,”

“I am not being an arse!” He knew that sounded childish, he knew it would infuriate John further, but for some reason, he kind of said it anyway...

“Yes,” John turned from his tea-making to glare angrily at him, “Yes, you bloody are. What if I hadn’t have come home? You could be dead right now. It wouldn’t be Creber’s body they’d be cleaning up off the floor, it would be yours,”

A small shiver ran through Sherlock’s heart that made him feel ridiculously uncomfortable. He was fairly certain that this emotion could be identified as guilt. He hadn’t had a lot of experience with this emotion or any idea how best to handle it. All he knew was that the shiver worsened the longer he spent studying John’s almost tortured expression. He decided he had to say something, anything, before it got the better of him, “John,”

“I come in and I’m here and I’m ready to give you a bloody good talking to for what happened earlier and you leave me cryptic clues and-- what I don’t get is why couldn’t have just bloody texted me?”

 _Please, please stop talking._ The feeling was worsening and Sherlock was beginning to panic. He couldn’t focus when he was on the brink of emotional overload. He wasn’t meant to have emotions, he wasn’t used to them, but he was experiencing them an awful lot ever since a certain military Doctor limped into his life. No, this had to stop before it went too far. He could feel his fingers twitching at his sides as he grasped desperately for the control he could feel slowly slipping away, “John,”

“There were thousands of other ways you could have done this, thousands, and you choose the one most likely to get you killed! Why did you even trust me with such--“

And that was it. That was what pushed Sherlock Holmes over the edge. He couldn’t let John finish that sentence, he just couldn’t even though he knew exactly what he was going to say (he was the world’s only Consulting Detective after all). How could he, how could John possibly _not_ know how he could trust him? The truth was that John Watson was the only person who could stand him for more than 5 minutes at a time and not only that; this amazing man seemed to be completely _fascinated_ by the mannerisms that were inclined to infuriate others. This man kept him up at night, kept his mind racing and was the only puzzle in the world that Sherlock Holmes could not quite solve, if anything, he was a puzzle with many hidden pieces yet to be discovered _and he bloody loved it, of course he did._ He loved the constant puzzle that was John Watson, he loved that for what he didn’t have in genius he made up for in heart and loyalty, he loved that John actually cared enough to be angry at him for putting his life on the line. This meant John was scared of losing him, but little did he know that it was in fact Sherlock that was _terrified_ of losing John.

Sherlock hadn’t realised he had moved across the Kitchen until it was too late to turn back. It was almost like he had left his body and become an apparition of himself, floating above the room watching his doppelganger below him taking control of the situation in the least Sherlock-y way possible. He felt his fingertips ghost over John’s jaw and into his hair, now waxy from the rain. It wasn’t until he felt his lips collide against John’s that he came crashing down to earth, now too far gone to regain his self control and allowing himself to take hold of this moment with both hands. He felt John resist, likely out of shock, for all but a moment before he accepted the tongue that was tracing his bottom lip, begging for entry.

The second John complied Sherlock was overcome with need, the need to map and document John and never, _ever_ forget this moment for as long as he lived. He mentally took notes on exactly how John’s tongue moved, where each tooth ended and a new one began, how his lips felt under his, how much John’s heart rate increased when he first brushed his tongue over his. In his fervour he had become increasingly fierce in his affections, attacking John’s mouth with brutal efficiency and opening up the split in his lip as he did so. This, in turn, caused extreme antipathy to wash over Sherlock as if he’d just ruined an important experiment, he had tainted how John tasted just before he had chance to analyse each particular flavour in turn and he was absolutely disgusted with himself. It was then, the second that that harsh metallic tang of blood hit his tongue, that he suddenly felt like he was rushing back into himself from a great distance. It sunk in exactly what he was doing and he remembered that he’d needed to say something, get something off his chest and he needed to do it now. He needed to say it and walk away before he lost himself completely.

“Because you are the only person in the whole world I trust, John, the only person I would ever dream of holding responsible for my life, the only person who I still can’t figure out and if you stopped thinking so much about everything all the time you might actually figure out that I--”

Sherlock stopped. No, no he couldn’t do that, couldn’t say that. This was exactly why he had tried so desperately to keep control, because he knew if he didn’t he would say something that could drive John away and that was the last thing he wanted. His mind was a hive of activity as it processed and analysed everything that had just happened, everything that he had just said in excruciating and methodical detail. He daren’t open his eyes; observing John’s facial expression, his eyes, his subtle movements - it would send him into data overdose and he needed to focus, he needed to think, he needed to process. It was then that he noticed John was holding his breath and had been for the past minute and a half, patiently waiting for him to say something. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t trust himself right now so instead he dragged himself away, feeling the heat evaporate from his fingertips as he lost all physical contact with John.

Sherlock rubbed his forehead hard as he rounded the corner and away from the Kitchen, almost losing balance as he felt his mind completely sink back into his body again. He allowed his eyes to open and felt the weight of what just happened come to rest squarely down on his shoulders. It took all the strength and energy he had left to climb the stairs and hide himself away in his room.

Once there he fell back against the door and emptied his mind of thoughts. His breathing was heavy and he’d allowed his eyes to fall shut once more so that he could concentrate on concentrating on nothing at all. But it wasn’t long before his mind was alive again, quickly deducing what might happen next, what John was doing, whether he would leave, whether he’d go to bed, what he was going to say in the morning. He slid down the door slowly until he hit the floor, fumbling around amongst the junk and abandoned experiments in his immediate vicinity for his nicotine patches, stretching long legs out in front of him. Once located, he slowly and silently applied 3 and contemplated a fourth before tossing the box aside and steepling fingers thoughtfully. He slowed his breathing right down to deepen the quiet around him and listened carefully for sounds of life downstairs.

Nothing. Perfect silence. Sherlock sighed inwardly but continued to listen. Listening was all he had; there was no way he could even contemplate sleeping tonight. He was going to sit here and he was going to wait and listen until he knew what John was going to do.

An hour passed before he heard a floorboard creak. Sherlock had remained vigilant in his position and was still wide awake, in the dark, on the floor, legs outstretched, mind racing at 100mph, aided by the familiar warm of nicotine coursing through his veins. He tilted his head thoughtfully and processed each sound. He had come to learn the sounds of their home quite well and easily identified his friend’s movements as he slowly began to make his way up the stairs. There was a pause as John reached the top, a pause that caused Sherlock to stop breathing completely so that he could listen for the slightest hint of directional decision. He exhaled slowly as the footsteps resumed and made their way closer to his door. He watched as the light from the hall was disturbed by a standing John, causing shadows to dance under his doorway and across the floor in his room. Sherlock remained perfectly still, back against the door, fingers still steepled, breathing at an agonizingly slow pace. He felt his pulse throb in his wrist and he inhaled sharply to satisfy his body’s demand for oxygen.

He felt the door press forward into his back as John leaned into it. There was another pause before he heard sound of material sliding over wood, followed by a muffled thud. Sherlock waited, patiently. They were only separated by mere inches of wood, but Sherlock never felt further away.

“You’re a bloody good kisser, I’ll give you that,” Sherlock felt the corners of his mouth twitch but he didn’t answer, just continued to stare ahead into the darkness. There was a long pause before John spoke again, “Can I come in?”

Sherlock tilted his head and brushed his cheek along the cool wood of the door, thinking carefully about all possible outcomes of this conversation. The coolness of the wood tingled his cheek but he noted a very slight change in temperature since the last time he’d done this around 30 minutes ago, mainly down to the fact that John Watson was sitting the other side; John Watson who ran radiator hot at all times, but never seemed to overheat.

“John,” Sherlock began but for the first time in a good 20 years he could literally feel the words escaping him. Instead of leaking out of his mouth, they were pooling in his ears, swirling round and taunting him with his own indecision. He tried to say them, tried to grab hold of a sentence, a word, but he couldn’t, he wasn’t ready just yet. So instead, he listened to the silence and hoped John would somehow understand.

“I know this is hard for you, and I’m not expecting you to pour out everything that’s in your head twice in one night. You’re probably still coming down from the first time,” Sherlock felt warmth sweep over him, sometimes he gave John too little credit, “I’m not saying I’m not angry with you for doing something so bloody ridiculous, but I know you work in strange ways and you probably had your reasons for doing it,”

Sherlock tongued his split lip thoughtfully, feeling very John-like at this moment in time. He felt ready now. He’d had more than enough time to recover from opening the Pandora’s Box that was his emotional vault and words were slowly but surely coming back to him.

“John, you know that I always know what I’m doing. I wouldn’t do these things if I didn’t have the upmost confidence that everything would be completely fine...”

“Apart from the black eye and the split lip, you mean,”

Sherlock rolled his eyes but continued anyway, “And you know that I meant what I said before, that I trust you unreservedly. I couldn’t leave anything obvious just in case someone came snooping in the flat and the last thing I wanted was for you to be implicated in any way. But I knew you’d figure it out, you’re getting very good at figuring things out,”  
“I can’t figure you out. You drive me bonkers, do you know that?”

Sherlock breathed an uncertain smile as he let his head fall back against the wood, “I can’t figure you out either, John,”  
John huffed an unconvinced laugh, “Don’t start with that, you had me pegged the moment you saw me,”

“John, you are more than split second deductions and flyaway observations, you’re the most interesting puzzle I have ever come across,”

Silence. Then, “You can’t possibly mean that,”

Outraged, Sherlock rolled onto his knees and pulled the door open. John started to fall before catching himself on the door frame and twisting round to face him, “Stop it, right now,”

John was frozen, staring up at him confused, “Stop what?”

“You know what,”

“Enlighten me,”

Sherlock gave an exasperated sigh before taking John’s chin between long pale fingers and pulling him around and onto his knees in one swift action. He scanned his eyes over that perfect face before locking John into his trademark intense stare as he spoke, “You are worth more than the value you have placed on yourself. There is so much more to you than you may ever recognise or appreciate. There are times where you are like an open book, whilst at the same time you are completely and utterly closed off from the world. You’re an ever intensifying entity of information, John, and I have never met anyone quite like you,”

Sherlock continued to stare unblinking at John, staring through the silence, staring into John’s eyes and hoping he might get a glimpse of his soul, learn something else, store it forever and never forget it. He tried to read him, analyse the flicker in his eyes, the twitch of his jaw, the way his pulse quickened under the fingers that had found themselves positioned just below his ear. He searched and searched for any inkling of a reaction.   
And after long, agonizing moments, John finally reacted...


	6. Chapter 6

John was struggling to think straight. He had so many questions but he wasn’t sure if now was the time to ask them. It was all happening so fast. Here he was, kneeling in front of a side to Sherlock Holmes John didn’t even know existed. He could feel Sherlock’s eyes burning into his, his gaze so intense it was if he was taking him apart piece by piece and rebuilding him, learning his every movement, trying to find a way to crawl into his soul. It was unnerving and endearing all at once.

He held Sherlock’s wrists in his hands, circling his thumb over his pulse gently and soaking in the appreciative throb it gave in return. Sherlock’s eyes flickered but didn’t close and his grip on John tightened briefly before loosening again. John took this opportunity to lean forward and press his forehead against Sherlock’s, breathing him in in quiet admiration. He allowed himself to get completely lost in those devastatingly lovely grey eyes for just another moment more before breaking the silence and taking a risk. Yes, he wanted to ask questions, he had a lot of questions, both for himself and for Sherlock, but they could wait. Right now, in this very moment, John Watson wanted nothing more than to dive headfirst into really bloody risky territory just to see what would happen. So he did.

He swallowed all his apprehensions and uncertainty and brushed his lips against Sherlock’s, a move that was obviously most unexpected as the detective flinched in surprise. He immediately rectified this, however, by suddenly devouring John as way of encouragement, pulling him into another feverish kiss that robbed his lungs of air and left him breathless. His tongue found itself brutally under siege by a very eager counterpart that he was more than happy to fall victim to. He stole desperate breaths between Sherlock’s messy assault on his mouth as he pushed harder and harder forward until John could feel himself loosing balance and then consequently did, falling back with a dull thud and a surprisingly light Sherlock Holmes flat on top of him. He could feel Sherlock’s fingertips tracing sporadically over his features – mapping him in the only way he knew how.

John grabbed onto Sherlock’s hips to steady himself, battling for purchase on the wooden floor as the world span violently around him. It was at this moment that he considered his compromising position and smirked a little under Sherlock’s intense affections. Sherlock obviously sensed this movement and stopped abruptly to stare inquisitively at him, at which John couldn’t help but laugh breathily at the look of confusion on his face and the way his hair was standing up at such odd angles after barely a minute’s worth of serious kissing. His struggle to stifle his amusement only caused to confuse his friend further until he struggled up onto his elbows, causing Sherlock to rise up on palms placed firmly either side of him.

Sherlock had the look very much of a child who had just discovered ice cream for the first time; curious, amazed and confused all at once, “Are you alright?”.

Sherlock ignored this question and instead closed the inches between them so that that they were barely touching. He brushed his nose against John’s briefly before pulling away mere millimetres and studying his face carefully, “John,” he began, before looking down at his hands on the floor, “This is... I don’t think... I can’t...” he exhaled in frustrated before struggling back onto his knees between John’s legs.

John pulled himself up to before brushing a wayward dark curl out of the exasperated eyes in front of him, “Wow, I’ve done the impossible,” Sherlock finally looked up from his hands to look John curiously in the face, “I actually broke your brain. I have rendered you completely speechless, about bloody time,”

Sherlock steepled his fingers in thought and studied John carefully, his eyes gradually wondering down from John’s eyes to his lips to his chest and continued their journey until they settled on his crotch, shamelessly lingering there, deep in thought.

“I don’t mind, if this is all... new... to you. It’s kind of new to me too...” John was met with silence, but bravely continued on, “I mean, I’ve done this before, a couple of times, but I don’t know if you... if you...” he sighed and rubbed the bridge of skin between his eyes, “I wish I could read your mind, that would make this a lot easiiieerhhnnnggg...” John was rudely cut off from his little speech by Sherlock, who had taken this precise opportunity to descend upon him, rubbing a cheek up John’s thigh to his crotch, then pulling back again to observe the results. The results were, in fact, a confused and highly aroused John Watson.

Sherlock almost smirked at the look of surprise on John’s face before leaning forward and crawling up his body slowly until they were face to face again, “Don’t underestimate me,” he said quietly into the curve of John’s jaw, “This is only new to me in the sense that you’re the only one that’s actually worth my...” Sherlock exhaled and trailed off as they lay in silence, leaving John to speculate how that sentence might have ended.

John knew all too well that this kind of emotional verbal-diarrhoea would be short lived. He also knew that although Sherlock was clearly venting a lot of pent up emotions, there was still a part of him that just couldn’t let everything go just yet. Nevertheless, John couldn’t help but feel a pang of happiness at the fact Sherlock found him worth his... something.

“OK,” John said with a nod before sitting up fully and lacing his fingers into Sherlock’s belt hoops, pulling him forward so that they were close again, “You don’t have to say anything and I don’t expect anything from you, just get that into your head right now. I’ll be honest, I’m really fucking terrified, about all of this, but I don’t care because this has been the best I’ve felt in months and I...”

At this point, Sherlock almost floated towards him and planted a chaste kiss on his lips before pulling away to stare tentatively into his eyes. It was Sherlockian for ‘Thank you for understanding’ and John could literally feel his heart warming as he lost himself completely in adoring eyes.

The sweetness and affection was short lived however, as Sherlock pushed John firmly back flat on his back and began a brand new attack on his neck, licking a glistening line from his jaw down to his collarbone. John’s breath hitched as his arms fell out flat either side of him, unable to fully comprehend how everything had so suddenly kicked up a gear. John felt long nimble fingers work the buttons on his shirt as Sherlock’s tongue drew lazy shapes down further, following the trail his unbuttoning was creating.

“Oh fuck, _oh fuck_ ,” John was almost squirming now as Sherlock reached his belt buckle and got to work undoing it, “Sherlock, _fuck_ , you don’t... you don’t think we’re going too...”

Sherlock licked one long line from the base of John’s stomach right up to his adams apple before looking him dead in the face, “No,” he said bluntly, before gliding back down his body, scattering soft kisses as he went.   
It took almost no time at all from Sherlock to undo John’s belt. John huffed as he forced his head up to witness exactly what was happening right now. His eyes widened as he saw Sherlock unbutton his jeans and slide his zip down _with his bloody teeth._

John let out a guttural groan as his head fell back to the floor with a clunk, “You’ve done this before you bastard,” Sherlock smirked into John’s stomach before licking a long line along the skin just above the waistband of his boxers, encouraging a breathy gasp to escape from John’s lips, “You have as well you jammy git,”

It became clear to John that Sherlock was paying no attention to him whatsoever as he proceeded to pull his jeans down his thighs and lick a damp stripe over the bulge in his grey boxers. John’s mind went totally blank. All thoughts of what was happening to him right now completely left his mind as he felt Sherlock tug his boxers down completely. He was too far gone to feel even a shred of embarrassment at being so completely exposed, flat on his back in the hallway with the world’s only consulting detective looming over him; a look in his eyes telling him he was probably about to get the best orgasm of his entire life. _Fuck._

Sherlock stroked both hands along the inside of John’s thighs before taking John in his mouth for the first time. John gave a string of incoherent syllables as he came clattering back down to earth from his arousal induced daze, bucking his hips helplessly into the wet heat that was slowly engulfing him. He felt a sudden coldness as Sherlock slowly moved back up, almost releasing him before taking him all back in and more in one smooth stroke.

By this point, John was a wreck. The sensations alone were one thing entirely, but the fact that this was Sherlock Holmes, _Sherlock Holmes_ , object of his very confusing desires pretty much since the day they met, carried him blissfully towards the edge of his release as he wriggled and writhed under his quickening ministrations. In the distance he could hear shuffling and another zip hurriedly being undone and a harsh exhale. A deft hand began stroke his leg and nails bit at his thighs whilst a worryingly skilled tongue worked in time with teeth and lips to tip him over the edge completely.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuuuuuuck,” John saw stars. The corners of his vision dulled to grey as the light from the hallway lamp above his head began to spin and dance and explode into an array of dizzying colour. He heard a sharp inhale and a barely audible groan coming from his crotch as Sherlock, too, found his release. His breathing was sharp and ragged as the aftershocks rumbled through him until everything around him came sharply back into focus.

He gathered his strength to rise up onto his elbows just in time to see Sherlock release him completely and wipe the corner of his mouth with his thumb (it really was criminal to be that sexy, surely) before rising up and striding quickly into his bedroom, leaving John behind in a rather compromising position. He raised an eyebrow as he gazed into the darkness of Sherlock’s room before realising he was completely exposed and scrabbling to pull his jeans back up.

John had never been in Sherlock’s room before, which was a bit unusual considering how long they’d been living together now. He’d often head strange noises coming from his room in the middle of the night but he’d never dared come looking for him to see what ridiculous experiment he was carrying out now.

The light from the hallway only lit up a fraction of the room before him but John could see piercing eyes watching him from the centre of the room. He sat up and thought quietly for a moment, wondering what this meant and what exactly he should do now. He was disturbed from his thoughts, however, by a welcome baritone ringing out from the darkness, “You can sleep in here if you’d like,”

John smiled and palmed the back of his neck carefully, “Well I was going to kip out here on the floor, but that sounds like a better option,” with relief, he pulled himself up and slowly ventured into new territory.

Sherlock’s room smelled of nicotine and failed experiments, with a hint of fragrance that was distinctly Sherlock. It smelled oddly familiar and it took John a couple of minutes to realise that Sherlock’s room smelled a lot like Sherlock’s coat; the coat he’d had the exquisite pleasure of inhaling on their recent jaunt through the alleyways of London whilst running after Robert Creber.

On his mission towards Sherlock’s bed he unwittingly booted a box across the floor which then proceeded to hit something metal which rolled into something else that went clattering to the floor, causing a disgruntled sigh to sound from the direction of the bed. John swallowed down a smile, he couldn’t even see but he knew that Sherlock’s room was everything he’d imagined it to be; cluttered and probably a biohazard. He continued on past an array of other obstacles until he felt his knees hit the mattress.

He sat down on the bed and heeled off his shoes, taking a couple of minutes to allow his eyes to get used to the darkness. He couldn’t understand how Sherlock’s room could possibly be this dark, but he decided not to think about it for now as he swung his legs up and shuffled back onto some pillows, “Here alright?” he said absently.

“Well I’d hardly expect you to sleep on the floor, John,”

John rolled his eyes before folding his limbs one over the other to rest on his side where he met one beautifully pale and nicely defined Sherlock Holmes gazing up at him, also on his side but further down the bed. John wriggled down so he was at eye level and hesitantly put a hand out to him in search of somewhere to rest it. He found his hip and curled his two smallest fingers around his belt, using the other two to stroke at skin hidden under a very expensive textured shirt.  
“So...” John began hesitantly, unsure really of what he wanted to say.

“You have questions,” Sherlock said quietly, slowly outstretching his arm and taking hold of some of John’s shirt as if it was security for the conversation.

“Yes,” John swallowed hard and waited for approval.

Silence hung in the air for long moments until Sherlock broke it disparagingly, “Well, go on then,”

John shuffled uncomfortably before he settled on the right words, “How long... have you felt like this?”

More silence. John wondered if he was asking too much of him after everything that had just happened.

Sherlock exhaled slowly before speaking, “I don’t know,”

“... You don’t know?”

“Not really,”

“Well, you can’t have just woke up one day and thought ‘So, today I quite fancy John Watson’,”

“No, John, don’t be so obtuse,”

“I’m not being obtuse, you’re being difficult,” For a short moment, it was as if nothing had happened and they were back to bickering over dead bodies and deductions. Just a short moment, mind.

“John... I don’t know when... when I noticed you... differently... It’s all part of the puzzle that is you,”

Typical. _Why do you have to be so bloody mysterious and vague all the time._ “Alright, I can tell I’ll get nowhere with this, so I’ll move on. What do you want from me?”

Sherlock shuffled closer and higher up into the pillows so that he could comfortably place a kiss on John’s forehead in a gesture that was most unlike him, “This. I want this,”

John allowed his hand to travel round to the small of Sherlock’s back where he drew lazy circles as he thought, “OK, I want this too. Whatever this is... It’s all a bit... different,”

Even more silence. John felt a hand slide up his chest and over his shoulder where a palm cupped his neck and fingers tangled into his hair. It was a gesture of complete understanding that John attempted to return in kind by nuzzling his face into Sherlock’s neck. He did want this; that much was clear. OK, so it had all happened a little bit fast and he was probably getting himself into something he had only had fleeting experience in but right now he didn’t really care too much. It was late and he was tired and everything else could wait until the morning because for the first time in a long while, John Watson was absolutely and completely happy.


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock first awoke precisely 2 hours 32 minutes and 15 seconds after he first fell asleep, roughly 47 minutes and 23 seconds after John first fell asleep (he learned this information from less than 3 seconds careful analysis of the room temperature). John had since rolled over and was now facing away from him, the likely cause of his sudden awakening. Sherlock looked over at his bed mate and carefully began to re-analyse all the data he had collected that night. He lightly traced a single finger down John’s back and revelled in the soft exhale it produced from him as John unconsciously relaxed into his ghosting touch.

He pressed his face into the pillow under his head and blinked hard before retracting his hand completely so as he could think without any distractions. What had happened in previous hours was most unusual but definitely not unpleasant. Unbeknownst to John, Sherlock had been harbouring confusing feelings of his own for quite some time and it all started around the time that John met Sarah. It was at this point where Sherlock found himself going to extraordinary lengths to disrupt their relationship as discreetly as possible and became completely oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t doing so out of fear of losing his assistant; it was out of fear of losing him. John Watson, the last remaining unpredictable man on earth. It was around this time that suddenly all of these emotions became rather confusing for one supposedly asexual consulting detective.

Sherlock hadn’t been lying when he’d told John he didn’t know how long he’d felt ‘like this’ about him, mainly because it was impossible to define what feeling ‘like this’ entailed. Was it the tingle in his fingertips whenever John breathlessly praised his deductions? Was it the warmth in the pit of his stomach whenever they accidentally touched? Was it the strange ache in his chest whenever John left for work, or the painful bubble of anxiety and excitement in his throat upon knowing he was coming home again? Was it all of these things or none of these things? Because Sherlock had taken John quite literally when he asked him this question, and it damn near broke Sherlock’s brain trying to pinpoint the exact moment that tipped him over the edge of their friendship and into the abyss of wanting John all to himself at all times and at all costs. Besides, how could he know what ‘like this’ was if he had nothing to compare it to? His experiences with other people had always been out of convenience, but with John it was different. It wasn’t convenience, it was almost like necessity. Uncontrollable need for more than what he had. The need to map and learn and exist with John at his side at all times.

This need was almost painful to suppress, but Sherlock had been managing quite gracefully with only the occasional slip where he found it just too tempting to press his form against his friend in a darkened alley under the pretence of not wishing to be discovered by knife wielding murderers, or just too excruciating to just _not_ pin a wrist out of the way in a storage facility trying to force a reaction after the slightest of hints that maybe, just maybe, John Watson was equally as confused as he.

At this point, just as Sherlock was beginning to lose himself to his thoughts, John huffed an exhale and squirmed about next to him, potentially in the throws of a nightmare. Sherlock carefully scooted over to him, pressing the length of his body along his back and curving his limbs in line with his. That seemed to do the trick, as the squirming slowly stopped and John’s more recognizable sleeping breaths resumed. Sherlock put his trail of thought on hold momentarily now that this new opportunity to collect data had presented itself. There was still so much he didn’t know about John. Everything that had happened in the hallway had all happened rather quickly. Hearing John accept his difficulty to properly define what he struggled to say, but still seem to understand entirely what he meant was far too much. It was just a completely and utterly perfect ‘John Moment’ and Sherlock could not resist thanking him for all his perfections in the only way he considered appropriate since his brain had caused words to fail him so miserably.

All this new information was an awful lot to take in, which was partly the reason his brain seemed to be unable to initiate his usual filters, allowing his heart to get carried away with talking before his brain had chance to shut him up before he embarrassed himself. Alternatively, when it was time to talk from the heart, his brain frustrated him furthermore by suitably choking his vocal cords leaving him unable to say anything even vaguely coherent. He hoped that this sort of thing got easier with practice. Sherlock had never indulged in a proper ‘relationship’ of sorts, not to mention actually felt feelings any stronger than a vague distaste for someone. This was all completely new territory.

He pressed his face into the base of John’s neck and inhaled. John always smelled so familiar, yet so foreign, it was another one of the endless reasons Sherlock Holmes found him to be such a puzzle. In many ways, John Watson smelled like home, but in countless other ways, he smelled completely unfamiliar. He allowed one hand to snake along John’s shoulders and tangle itself affectionately in his hair so has he could gather further information. John’s hair felt soft and clean underneath his fingertips and Sherlock allowed himself a small personal smile as he added this information to his ‘John Storage’. He then slipped his other hand under John’s shirt and slowly traced a finger along the skin above John’s jeans before sliding his whole hand in and scrunching his fingers around the leg of John’s boxers possessively to keep him in place. John Watson would not be leaving this bed until Sherlock Holmes said so, fact.

Their clinch in the hallway had made it difficult for Sherlock to really document John properly, and this frustrated him no end. Instead he had to settle for gaining little snippets of information, whetting his appetite for further information as everything appeared to move at 100mph until it all proved too much and Sherlock inevitably ceased his lesson in ‘John’ and succumbed to his own desires whilst simultaneously allowing John to succumb to his. This, although ultimately very satisfying, resulted in almost immediate regret at not fully storing any new information and then instantaneous retreat to the bedroom, knowing full well that John would inevitably follow. This then allowed them to fall asleep, thus allowing Sherlock to find himself in his present position.

He could feel John stirring again thanks to all his shuffling around behind him, so with much regret (and disgust at his own dissipating selfishness, thank goodness his Sociopathic reputation had only been damaged in front of John), he instead decided to halt his learning for the time being. He had plenty of time to learn the subject that was John, afterall.

xXx

John first awoke around 3 hours later for no particular reason at all. At first he was completely confused as to why he was fully clothed atop an unfamiliar bed in the pitch black. Then he was confused as to why he couldn’t move. Then he was, at first, quite alarmed at the hand down his jeans. That was until he slowly came back to life as memories of the hours before leaked back into his mind and he relaxed. He shuffled some more trying to move but Sherlock had quite a hold on him, his fingers were curled around the leg of his boxer shorts under his jeans, whilst his other hand was tangled in his hair. Their legs were tangled together and he could feel a comforting warm, steady breath on the back of his neck where Sherlock had snuggled into him. It was the most unusual thing to wake up to, but John couldn’t deny that it was quite nice feeling so, well... needed.

He was too tired to try and prize Sherlock off him, so instead he gave in and drifted back off to sleep.

When he awoke again, it was significantly brighter as a grey London sunshine rolled in through the partially boarded up windows (John could now see why it had been so eerily dark in Sherlock’s room the evening before). The reason for his awakening soon became clear as a faint buzzing gradually got louder and louder until John was fully awake and scrabbling for his phone. He didn’t recognise the number immediately but answered regardless, just as it dawned on him that he was no longer tangled in limbs and was now actually a little cold.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he answered, “John Watson?”

“John? Urm... Is Daniel there?”

Initially, John was very confused, until his brain suddenly made a lot of connections very quickly. Daniel was the name Sherlock had used to get past the Receptionist at C&C Specialist storage. A wave of jealously swept over John for a short moment as he struggled to hold back the bitter tone to his voice as he responsed, “No, no he’s not,”

“Oh... right. Well, would you mind letting him know I’ve... Oh bugger,”

John arched an eyebrow, now stretched flat out on his back, almost mournfully stroking the space beside him absently, “Excuse me?”

“Sorry, Mr Creber’s on his way down and I’m not allowed to make personal calls,”

John sat bolt upright, “Mr who?”

“Mr Creber? He owns part of the company. Some loon shot himself in one of our storage rooms so he’s come down to straighten things out before he flies out,” John’s blood ran cold; this was getting weirder and weirder.

“Oh right, well, it was urm... nice, talking to you... Sorry, where’s he flying out to, exactly?”

“Oh, he has a place in Italy somewhere... So, yeah, please let Daniel know I called, I’d love to see him again,”

John scowled at the phone and hung up before studying his surroundings. Sherlock’s room was cold and notably Sherlock-less. As he looked around, he spotted the aftermath of his blindly kicking obstructions about the room, as a pile of books and papers lay collapsed on the floor next to a large wine bottle and an empty tin can (or perhaps it had always been like that?). John would have loved to explore Sherlock’s room all day, but he needed to find him and tell him about the most recent developments in their case. He straightened out his clothes before striding out of the room and making a beeline for the Kitchen.

He could hear the familiar creak of Sherlock’s arm chair as he entered the Lounge, “Sherlock, I...”

Mycroft. Mycroft was sitting in their Lounge. Mycroft was sitting in their Lounge with that familiar analytical Holmes stare in his eyes as he poked at random objects strewn about the room with the tip of his umbrella, “Good morning, John,” he said, suitably uninterested.

John nodded a greeting and allowed himself a quick glance in Sherlock’s direction (who looked far too well presented for this time in the morning), fingers steepled and glaring angrily at his brother sitting in the arm chair opposite. The tension in the room was far beyond the point of uncomfortable as John shuffled quietly into the Kitchen, swilling out two tea cups sitting mournfully on top of the bread bin and clicking the kettle on. He neglected to ask Mycroft if he wanted a cup. He didn’t want to encourage his presence any longer than necessary.

He was retrieving teabags when Sherlock joined him, standing millimetres away, studying his actions carefully. John wasn’t quite sure whether he should feel awkward or pretend like nothing had happened. He cleared his throat and stirred the teabags around the teacups quietly, very aware that he hadn’t yet added any liquid... Awkward it is, then.

“John,” Sherlock said, his voice was quiet and low as it seemed to rumble out of his chest and straight into the very pit of John’s stomach. Sherlock folded his arms and leaned back onto the counter. John studied the detective carefully and wondered for a moment if he had suffered memory loss due to information overload the night before as a shiver of concern crept up his spine, “Stop worrying, John, I’m not suffering from amnesia, we’ll talk in a moment,” Sherlock’s voice was all but a frustrated whisper as he seemed to read his thoughts once again. John managed a small smile before clearing his throat again and remembering what he came down to say.

“That receptionist from C&C just rang. She said...”

“The man that shot himself wasn’t Creber,” Sherlock said quietly, eyes fixated on the back of Mycroft’s head. John looked at Mycroft for a split second before looking back into distracted eyes.

“Is that why _he’s_ here?”

Sherlock tore his gaze away from his brother and looked at John, “Yes,” he answered blandly before leaving the Kitchen completely and coming to a halt in front of Mycroft, “Are we done?” he said as a new staring contest between them began.  
John rolled his eyes at the sibling rivalry that hung heavy in the air just as the kettle clicked.

Mycroft stood himself up slowly, not breaking his eye contact until the last possible second, “Yes, we’re done. Good day, John,” he called as he left their flat.

Sherlock flopped backwards onto his chair, limply hanging across it with feet stretched out in front of him. He looked as if the weight of the word was sitting on his shoulders, and judging by the latest shock development in their case, it probably was.

John poured the tea before approaching the pale statue in the living room that was now staring stonily ahead, mind racing and deducing. Sherlock sat up slightly to accept his cup of tea, swirling it around in its cup before putting it in its place on the floor next to him where it would likely remain, untouched.

“How the hell did I miss that,” Sherlock snapped, running a hand through his curls aggressively, “Why didn’t I know that it wasn’t him,”

“Who was it then, exactly?”

Sherlock sighed loudly at the prospect at having to repeat the information he was likely just given by his brother, “Not even from the same gene pool. His name was Jonathon Terry and he’d recently been released from hospital after his third suicide attempt. Creber approached him to play his part, whilst giving him the tools he needed to end his life as he wanted,”

“But why did he go ahead and do it?”

“Mycroft accessed Lucy Terry’s bank account this morning; Terry’s only daughter. Never saw her, mainly down to a few poor life choices. A large amount of money was transferred into her account last night. Creber obviously used it as some sort of bribe, giving the daughter the life she never had because of her Father’s expensive vices,”

John could hear the disgust in his voice as he spoke, he was clearly angry that he hadn’t noticed that Creber wasn’t actually Creber, something even John had to admit was a little unusual. He still tried in vain, however, to reassure the disgruntled detective in front of him, “There was no way you could have known that wasn’t him. You’ve never even seen Creber before...”

“But I should have known!” Sherlock was on his feet now, pacing the Lounge with hands on hips, “And I didn’t because I was too distracted,” Sherlock huffed out a lungful of air before kicking a book across the floor.

John flinched slightly before sitting down on the edge of the chair, “Distracted?”

“Yes! I was too busy trying to figure you out when I should have been figuring Creber out,” John felt a slight pang in his chest but he swallowed it back, freezing his face in the most neutral expression he could muster, he wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or slightly offended, “I shouldn’t have let it go so easily, if I’d have had time to process it I would have known that something wasn’t right, and I would have done something about it. If it wasn’t...” Sherlock stopped abruptly, but John didn’t need him to finish that sentence to know what he was going to say.

“If it wasn’t for me you’d have figured it out?”

Sherlock looked at him before ceasing his incessant pacing and coming to stop in front of him, threading fingers into his hair and pressing their foreheads together, “No. John, please understand this isn’t a personal attack on you, it’s an attack on myself for...”

“Getting distracted,” John said blankly, tensing under Sherlock’s fingertips.

“No. No, no, no, **no**. John, stop it, please. You’re focussing on the negatives,”

“Well, it’s not exactly easy to focus on anything else, especially when you seem to be blaming me for...”

“John,” Sherlock pulled back an inch to stare deeply into John’s eyes. Oh you bugger, don’t you dare... “Please, I need you. You aren’t the distraction, it was just... Everything was so new and overwhelming last night, especially after the business in the storage room the first time around. I knew something was different and I... and my...”

“Your brain exploded,”

Sherlock twitched a sheepish smile before continuing, “You know I’m not very good at this whole... Feelings thing, it’s all very foreign, but it’s clear to me now that I have upset you and I apologise unreservedly, it wasn’t my intention for you to feel culpability for my momentary lapse in observation,” Sherlock tended to get wordy when he felt strongly about something, whether that was insulting Anderson or proving his genius with deductions he seemed to pluck out of thin air and John picked up on this instantly, softening his demeanour slightly but not completely.

John knew deep down maybe he was taking things a little too personally and perhaps being just the slightest bit unreasonable. It wasn’t deliberate, things just felt different this time around, in this relationship, if that’s what you could call it, he was still unsure... He sighed and flickered his tongue along his bottom lip thoughtfully before leaning forward so that their noses were touching, “It’s fine, sorry... That was a bit not good...”

“I know it was and I _am_ sorry, John,”

“No, not on your part, you silly bloody idiot, on mine,” Sherlock looked confused and dropped to his knees, releasing John’s head and instead folding his arms in his lap, looking up at him like an inquisitive child. It scared John sometimes how Sherlock would suddenly slip into such childlike mannerisms, “This isn’t just overwhelming for you, you know. I feel as though I’m a teenager again with no idea what I’m doing and it’s really unsettling. I should know you by now, I should know what you’re like and I thought I did know, I was convinced and then...” John sighed. Truth be told, he was worried about what he was getting himself into with this. Yesterday he was roaming London confused and terrified. A lot had happened since then, causing his confusion to lessen but his fears to grow.

Sherlock stroked John’s knees with fingertips hidden underneath his folded arms, eerily large grey eyes staring up at him thoughtfully, most likely documenting something new. John shook his head, hoping his apprehensions would somehow get shaken out, too. Sherlock remained silent, still looking at him curiously, waiting patiently.

“Look,” John said quietly, “Just... We need to talk about this properly at some point so I can get my head around it,” something behind Sherlock’s eyes flickered at this statement, “I don’t regret anything that happened last night, none of it. Maybe it all happened a bit fast but... I just... I need to process it a bit. No doubt you’ve already done this several times over, but I’m not the world’s only Consulting Detective, I’m going to need more time,”

Sherlock stared up at John for long moments, causing John’s stomach to somersault in anticipation of what might happen next.

“John,” he said finally, “Perhaps you would accompany me to the morgue so I can examine Terry’s body?” the words rolled off Sherlock’s tongue as casually as if he were asking John about the weather.

John smirked, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand before nodding his acceptance at Sherlock’s unusual invitation; a gesture of understanding in unusual invitation form, “Not before I have a shower, though,” he said, pulling himself up and heading out with his tea as Sherlock fell back onto his knees.

“5 minutes or I’ll leave without you,” Sherlock said suddenly, rising to his feet and scooping up his violin lying conveniently by the fire, “You know I will, John,” he said with a small smirk before collapsing back into his armchair, staring wistfully at the ceiling as he mindlessly plucked out a tune with his fingers.

John shook his head before running up the stairs, knowing full well that today was just the start of what was likely to be a very unusual day.


	8. Chapter 8

A few hours later, John found himself grimacing in the morgue at St Baths, observing a very enthusiastic Sherlock Holmes rigidly examining the body of Jonathon Terry.

At present, Sherlock was practically nose to nose with the man, brow furrowed in concentration, magnifying glass out, one rebellious curl falling over his face. He’d been doing this for the past 5 minutes, just staring, not uttering a single word as John, Mollie and Lestrade stood in a silent line watching him work.

After another couple of minutes of silence, John felt a stirring beside him as Mollie turned to him for small talk,”So, John, how have you...”

“Shut up,”

“Sherlock,” John said sternly, to which Sherlock looked up from the man on the table for the first time since they entered the room, albeit briefly, to glare at him before returning his attentions to the body.

Mollie shuffled uncomfortably, and John breathed a disgruntled sigh at the detective’s abrasiveness whilst sharing an all knowing ‘look’ with Lestrade. Bad move.

“Would you all please just **shut up** ,” he said with a slam of hands on the metal, “I am trying to work, must you all insist upon making it difficult with your incessant thinking and shuffling and moving?”

“We haven’t even done anything!” Lestrade piped up as John pinched the skin between his eyes.

Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, likely to begin a wordy tirade on all inhabitants of the room, but was abruptly cut off by an increasingly exasperated John, rubbing a hand over his face as he spoke, “Sherlock, just get the bloody hell on with it,”

John opened his eyes just in time to see something flicker in Sherlock’s expression before he swept back down upon the body again with an inward sigh that only John could detect.

“This is useless, there’s nothing of importance here, nothing, just pointless facts, utterly pointless facts that neither help nor hinder me,” Sherlock straightened up now, crossing his arms indignantly before looking over the body one last time and reaching for his coat, “This is pointless, if I needed to know his best friend’s dog’s breed or where he went on holiday last year, I could have easily...”

“His best friend’s... what?” John looked both bewildered and somewhat amazed despite himself. The moment he realised he was staring at his pale companion in awe, he reset his features and went back to being annoyed with him for being so bloody belligerent.

Sherlock waved his arms in a noncommittal gesture before swirling gracefully into his coat and heading towards the door, coming to an abrupt halt just as he reached John, “Coming?”

John opened his mouth before closing it again, rolling his eyes as he nodded and followed the detective out. He waved solemnly to Lestrade and Mollie as he left, trying not to focus too much on their expressions. John knew that Lestrade was likely reeling at the lack of information he had gained from letting Sherlock see the body, his brow set in his typical ‘I really don’t know why I bloody bother’ position. Mollie was probably half-smiling in that almost painful way she does sometimes when she watches Sherlock; a little sad she was shouted at but happy to have been involved nonetheless.  
As they walked down the corridor, John shook his head disapprovingly, “You shouldn’t speak to people like that. I understand you need certain,” John paused and swallowed hard “’Conditions’ to work, but you could at least be a little nicer to people,”

Sherlock cocked his head ever so slightly and studied his army doctor for a brief moment, looking at him very much in the same way he looked at the progress of his experiments; analytically, thoughtfully, silent deductions that may never leave the confines of his head. John felt a little angry knot roll around his stomach but he ignored it, making a very loud mental decision that he would not feel like an experiment, this would not make him feel like an experiment. He was a person, not an experiment. John Watson the person, the doctor, the boyfriend? Boyfriend didn’t sound quite right, besides they’d only really.... the hallway thing... John swallowed hard and felt an uncomfortable heat ripple across the back of his neck under the collar of his shirt before catching sight of that glint in Sherlock’s eyes again and remembering why he was angry with him in the first place.

It began to dawn on John that there was the slightest of springs in Sherlock’s step. As if walking down this corridor was one of life’s greatest pleasures. John was all too aware that this very minor change in demeanour could only be spotted by him, but in his current frame of mind, this did very little to lift his spirits. The faintest of smiles was now tugging at Sherlock’s lips, and it was at this point that it was just damn well obvious to John exactly what was going on. Sherlock’s ‘I know something you don’t know’ face was only a very slight variation from his ‘Shut the hell up I’m thinking, therefore I am working’ face. _Oh no..._ “You know something, don’t you?”

There it was again, that flicker just behind the eyes, _Oh you bloody bastard, you do,_ John thought as they continued down the corridor. This unspoken knowledge only served to aggravate John further as he continued to watch Sherlock’s expression in his peripheral vision; unchanged but all knowing as they made their way out, John’s anger and frustration steadily rising.

The moment they were comfortably out of ear shot and a good distance away from the building, John began his attack, “Look, just what do you think you’re...”

But John would never finish that sentence. The words died on his lips and were swiftly transferred onto Sherlock’s as he found himself spinning down an alley way lips locked with one very frustrating detective. John, at first, tried to protest, pressing palms squarely to Sherlock’s shoulders but his tall and angular counterpart was persistent, tightening his grip on John’s collar and pushing him forcefully up against a wall, prying his mouth open with his tongue and instead ravishing his mouth as if searching for something, anything lost within John’s mouth. Perhaps the end of his sentence... Or maybe he wanted a tonsil; John certainly wouldn’t put it past him.

It was at this point that John decided it was time to give as good as he got. He balled his fists into Sherlock’s coat and pushed him forcefully backwards. Not breaking their contact for a second but decidedly asserting his authority as he began brutally assaulting the detective’s mouth in earnest. It then became a competitive and a ruthless battle of dirty tricks to gain the upper hand. Tongues crushed together tracing lips, teeth, gums, it was almost violating the way that they seemed to invade each other. John was really getting into it now, in fact, his knee had now positioned itself between Sherlock’s thighs, gently nudging them apart and pushing his form harder into him. It was at this point John felt Sherlock’s face move just slightly, and he didn’t have to be a consulting detective to figure out what this meant.

He pulled away confused and highly aroused only to bear witness to the most genuinely ‘Sherlock’ smile he had actually ever seen and god it was _so fucking beautiful_. Desperate to keep up his newly ascertained image, he cleared his throat and threw together his most serious expression, “What?”

Sherlock’s smile faltered, but only just, the mischievous glint in his eyes was still very much present, “I wanted to know if you tasted different when you were angry,” John raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to talk, but Sherlock clearly knew what he was going to say, “Not an experiment, John, just... a lesson. A lesson in John,”

John lost himself in this rare un-Sherlocky moment for just a short moment before shaking his head sharply and clearing his throat, “You know something, I know you do, you weren’t just smiling because your little ‘make-me-angry-to-see-how-I-taste’ scheme was going to plan, you know something significant and you’re not telling Lestrade,”

Sherlock gave a smirk that told John he’d hit the nail on the head, “I know where we need to go now. Can’t tell Lestrade, he’ll have his men walking all over potential evidence,”

John nodded thoughtfully, that tongue poking out slightly to tease the corner of his mouth, “Alright, let’s go,”  
“That’s the spirit,” Sherlock said as John pulled out of their clinch and strolled casually down the alley way. After 3 steps, he turned back to face the detective throwing him a questioning gaze, “So do I...”

“There is a slight change, only very slight. I have documented it,” he said blandly with a hint of a smile before taking off back out into the streets to wave down a taxi.

“Oh right, good... I think...”

xXx

An hour later, John was anxiously keeping watch as Sherlock picked the lock of a very rusty door tucked away in a back alley of China town. The kind of place you only knew was there if you knew it was there.

“Why are we here again?” John asked shortly as he hopped from one foot to the next. He was nervous. It was barely noon and they were breaking and entering already. Typical. Bloody typical.

Sherlock sighed and changed the angle of his pin in the lock, “Honestly, John, sometimes it’s like talking to a brick wall...”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” John muttered with a roll of his eyes.

“Hush. This is Terry’s flat. I know what I’m looking for; I’ll let you know if I find it,” John sighed loudly at this, “Oh seriously, John, stop being so theatrical, I’ll only be a moment,”

“Sherlock, we’re breaking into a dead man’s flat!” John’s breath hitched in his chest when he realised that that had slipped out a little louder than intended, provoking an anxious look around before turning his attentions back to the man below him, crouched down, nose deep in rusty locks.

“Just a few more minutes, John, and then we’ll be...”

But John didn’t have a few more minutes. With one last sigh of contempt he booted the door open swiftly and efficiently before grabbing Sherlock by the coat and dragging them inside.

“John, really, now they’re going to know we’ve been here,”

John shook his head as they made their way up the stairs, “That door’s ancient, a gust of wind could have knocked that thing down, now come on, I’m not comfortable about one bloody iota of what we’re doing right now, so let’s just get it over and done with,” John could practically feel Sherlock smiling into the back of his head, but they pressed onward and into the man’s flat.

“Right John, let me know if you see anything,”

John had a quick look at his surroundings, “Like what?” Sherlock simply sighed in response and began his search in the Kitchen. John resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to know what he was looking for, so he might as well make himself look busy as he rifled through the post, “Why couldn’t you tell Lestrade about what you’re looking for? Surely they’ll be coming here anyway,”

“They’re on their way as we speak, John,”

John froze, “Excuse me?”

Sherlock’s head appeared from out of a Kitchen cupboard, “Well he’s not an idiot, John, here would be the next logical place to look, that’s why it was imperative we got here first. We’ve probably got about 5 minutes before they get here...”

“5 minutes?! Sherlock!”

“John, please, calm down, I know what I’m looking for and we’ll be out the door and down the street before you can say...”  
“You’re a bloody stupid fucking idiot,”

“Well, not quite what I had in mind, John, but I admire your enthusiasm,” Sherlock went back to rummaging, so John kicked his search up a notch.

“YES!” John had become acclimatised to Sherlock’s sudden exclamations as he set his face to ‘neutral and unsurprised at fingers in the tub of butter’, as face he had come to used on an increasingly frequent basis since the initial discovery of digits in the butter...

The good doctor turned to discover Sherlock on his hands and knees, practically crawling into a Kitchen cupboard. A dangerous thought crossed John’s mind but he thought better of it. “Don’t get any ideas, John,” came a still somewhat gleeful baritone, echoing through the wood. John smirked and rolled his eyes before squatting down to see what he’d discovered.

“Well, what is it then?”

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply but he was interrupted by voices downstairs.

“Oh shit,” John immediately started scanning his surroundings, “If they catch us here, that’s it, we’re finished, you know what Lestrade said the last time you went off to collect your own evidence,”

Sherlock sighed, “I’ll just have to take the whole thing, no time to open it,” he then proceeded to pull a medium sized safe out of the cupboard.

“Oh bloody hell, right, OK then, let’s just casually stroll out the front door carrying a massive bloody safe, very inconspicuous,”

“Oh come on, John,” Sherlock clutched the safe to his chest, “Out of the front door, really... We’ll be going out of the window,”

“Sherlock...”

“John, there’s no time, we have to leave, right now, right this second, we’ve wasted enough time...”

“Alright, alright,” John swept past Sherlock, army head now well and truly screwed on, as he slowly shimmied open the window. It was quite a drop, but fortunately there was a small ledge they could jump down onto that could lead them over the roof top and down the other side of the building without being detected. He nodded to himself before gesturing to Sherlock, “Come on, out, aim for that ledge and get going, don’t wait for me, I’ll be right behind you,”

Sherlock nodded his agreement and stood in the window, one leg out, staring doe eyed and worried at John. Footsteps were getting closer. John bundled the detective out and followed suit, ushering him over the neighbouring rooftop and down behind a chimney.

“What was that about?” he hissed angrily, crouched completely still next to a confused looking man desperately clinging to a safe.

Sherlock sat, mouth slightly agape before shaking his head, “I don’t... I’m not... It’s...”

“No time, you _will_ explain to me everything that just went through your head the second we get home, but right now we need to _go_ ,” John said before grabbing Sherlock by the elbow and dragging him along the roof and as far away from Lestrade as possible.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, I have no idea what the HTML is doing on this chapter but I am infuriated beyond belief and have now given up. So, yes, apologies for weird italics fail.

“They’ll know,” John started, pacing the Lounge. “They’ll know we’ve been there, they’re not stupid.”

Sherlock sat in his armchair, staring at the safe, deep in thought but not in any way John had ever seen before. He looked almost dazed, highly confused and very much in another place entirely. John stood for a moment and considered this apparent husk of a detective in front of him before falling back onto the chair opposite. Something was quite obviously amiss.

“What’s wrong?” John sat up carefully, resting elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. He was concerned to say the least, “You haven’t said a word since the rooftop. You’re telling me what’s wrong. Whatever it is, you’re going to tell me, I’ve never seen you like that before.”

Sherlock sat, completely unmoving, to the point where John wondered whether he’d even heard, until finally, he broke the silence.

“Something weird happened, John.”

“Right, OK, and what was that?”

Sherlock shuffled uncomfortably, “I don’t really know.”

John rolled his eyes and sighed. This man. This man would be the bloody death of him, “OK, well, can you explain it?”

There was a moments silence where John could practically hear the cogs of Sherlock’s mind whirring, “When I looked back at you, and saw you there, ushering me out, promising me you’d be behind me, I just had this horrible, painful urge to stay with you.”

John blinked, swallowed hard and nodded, “Care to elaborate?”

“It was like everything just went quiet and black and white and it was just you and me and the thought of leaving you behind just... it just...”

“You really haven’t done this before have you,” John stated simply.

This accusation provoked a slight head jerk from the detective, who seemed to pull his knees in even closer to his chest, “Done what...” he said quietly.

“Relationships, you’ve never...” John had to chose his words incredibly carefully, lest he cause a brain implosion, “You’ve never cared about anyone properly before,”

Sherlock flinched slightly and John instantly regretted saying ‘cared’ until the detective piped up again, “No. No, I don’t suppose I have,” he pressed his fingertips together and stroked the steepled digits along his bottom lip, “Interesting.”

John nodded in understanding, “Right OK, well, usually, when you care for someone more than your average slice of jam on toast, you develop what’s known as ‘concern for their well being’...”

“Yes, John, thank you, I’m not an idiot,”

“Well, you could have fooled me...”

Sherlock rolled his eyes in defiance before pulling himself up and circling the safe sat on the table in front of him, hands on hips, “Now, how am I going to get into you...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” John pulled himself up too, placing a hand on Sherlock’s elbow and pulling him to face him, “What do you think you’re doing? This isn’t over, you can’t just brush it off as ‘interesting’ and forget all about it, I want to talk about this.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose at such a declaration but stood firm, hands still on hips, looking down at John’s disgruntled expression, “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said finally, before turning back to the safe, “Fetch me that stethoscope from my room, would you?”

John rolled his eyes. _Fine, OK, you win this round._

By the time John returned with the stethoscope, Sherlock was practically bouncing around the room with impatience, “You know, the hospital actually needs these; you can’t keep stealing medical supplies just because you feel like it.”

Sherlock waved a hand before holding out his palm in eager anticipation, “Yes, yes, John, of course, John, anything you like, John, now please give me the stethoscope so we can get started.”

John dropped the device into Sherlock’s hand with a sigh before taking up his place next to him to watch as he worked.

Not surprisingly, it didn’t take Sherlock long to pop open the safe, only to be greeted by a sea of paper cuttings, each with at least two words on. An expression John likened to a kid at Christmas crept over Sherlock’s face as he examined the new cryptic puzzle before him, taking out a single strip of paper one at a time, studying it, then laying it out onto the table.

John also began to rummage through the countless slips until his fingers brushed against something that was distinctly not paper, it was plastic... And cold... _This is just getting weirder and weirder..._

“Sherlock...”

“Bir Nifty Foe, Tinnier Thy, Softer Envy... Hmm?” Sherlock was far too busy scrutinising every curve of every letter of every slip of paper. Basically just doing what Consulting Detectives do best, “This is highly unusual. It’s got to be code for something, something complex, I need to concentrate...”

“There’s a bag of ice here, just a random bag of- OH... Oh, right... right OK, think you’ll get a kick out of this.”

“What?” Sherlock said, dropping the pieces of paper and rounding in on John, staring at him intently with eager eyes, scanning his expression for clues as to what this new surprise might be.

John got lost in his look of penetrating dedication for a moment before lifting the bag and shaking it, “There’s more than just ice in this bag.”

Sherlock snatched it from John and immediately set about emptying it out onto the limited free space of the table. And there, in amongst ice cube after ice cube that tumbled out, was a human finger.

John couldn’t hide a very, very minute smile at Sherlock’s mesmerised expression upon seeing the digit lying helplessly on his Kitchen table, “Oh, John, this is fantastic...” he murmured.

“I should be worried about you, instead I’m worried about the fact that I’m not worrying about you and your sick delight at discovering severed body parts in unusual places...”

“John, we need to go to Bart’s, right this second, right now, I need to know whose finger this is.”

“Sherlock, you just stole evidence from a crime scene, you can’t just stroll in with a human finger-“

“Oh come on, John, where’s your sense of adventure?” The grin on Sherlock’s face was obscenely devilish as he spoke, “We’ll sneak in, get past Molly, find out whose finger this is and avoid Lestrade at all costs, it’ll be fine, better than fine - it’ll be easy.”

“Oh right, OK then, so it’ll be like the Peterson case, then?”

Sherlock was already half way across the room, twirling into his coat and picking up John’s ready to throw it to him, “John, that was a miscalculation, if I’d have known you’d end up in the Thames and I’d end up with a black eye, I wouldn’t have suggested we scale the bridge. I know that now, but this is completely different, what’s the worst that could happen?”

‘What’s the worst that could happen’ pah! John Watson could write the book...

xXx

“This is a bad idea.”

“Quiet, John.”

“A very, very bad idea.”

“John, all we have to do is get past Molly and we’re set, fine, done, dusted, everything in between...”

“God, you’re terrifying when you’re excited.”

Sherlock simply smirked in response as they rounded the corner, only to walk straight into Molly Hooper, “Ah, Molly! Just the girl I wanted to see!”

Molly looked up at the towering man in front of her before crinkling her nose with a small frown, “What do you want?” she said abruptly, looking defiantly into eyes that were shamming apologies.

“Just another look at the body... Maybe a turn around the lab,” Sherlock said with a smile, “And to apologise, for earlier, I was dreadfully uncouth and an absolute horror. The way I acted was completely unforgivable and it’s been playing on my mind all evening.”

 _Oh, please_ thought John. He’d known Sherlock long enough to be able to tell when his emotions were genuine (rare) and when they were shammed (frighteningly frequent) and this display was so painfully false it made his teeth ache. There was no way in hell that Molly would ever fall for it...

“Oh,” Molly blushed. _Oh Molly..._ “Well... well, that’s very nice of you to apologise,”

Sherlock smiled warmly at her, “So... the lab?”

“Oh! Yes, go right ahead, no worries.”

“Wonderful... Oh, and you haven’t seen us,” he followed this statement with a wink that sent Molly positively googly eyed before she swayed off down the hall away from them.

Upon entering the lab, Sherlock deposited his coat on the nearest coat hook before pulling the iced finger out of one of the many coat pockets it concealed.

“You know, you’d have probably got the same result if you’d _genuinely_ apologised to her,” John said, removing the small bagful of paper slips they’d found within the safe and spreading them out on the table in front of him, “It’s cruel what you do, and she has no idea how false you’re being which makes it even worse.”

Sherlock simply shrugged and began the task of identifying the owner of the finger in silence.

John shook his head and sighed as he began to arrange the slips of paper in front of him. A lot of them were doubled up and by the time he’d thrown out the duplicates he was left with 23 seemingly random words on 8 slips of paper. He rubbed a palm over his forehead and began looking for a pattern, but his mind was still full of Sherlock and the look on his face as he ushered him out of the window earlier that day. There was something so painfully vulnerable about the look in his eyes that left his heart aching and he wasn't quite sure why.

“Turkish, French, German, Spanish,”

John looked up from the papers in front of him, “Excuse me?”

“4 of the words on those slips are in other languages; Turkish, French, German, Spanish. Bir, quatre, sechs, ocho. One, Four, Six, Eight.”

“You got all that from looking at them for two minutes back at the flat?”

Sherlock sighed, “Yes, John.”

“So, what does it mean?”

“Don’t know, still thinking about it... What I do know is that safe was planted for me to find, and not long before we got there either judging by the state of the ice.”

“Right, OK,” John rolled his neck and continued to study the words.

“But it’s not that that’s frustrating you is it.”

“Hmm?”

“These puzzles. They’re not frustrating you, you’re still wound up about earlier.”

 _Ah, deducing again, well go ahead, Sherlock, I’m all ears..._ John said nothing, instead planting his elbows on the table and resting his chin on top of his clasped hands. If Sherlock wanted to deduce him, he could go right ahead, but he wasn’t going to give him any assistance.

Sherlock peered around from the computer screen and upon spotting John willingly accepted his silent challenge. He wheeled himself over on his chair and came to an abrupt halt to the side of him, mimicking his position and staring intently at him.

“You want me to deduce you. Well that makes a change, you’re always surprising me, John, I’ll give you that.”

John simply stared hard at the wall opposite him, stead fast and refusing to back down. At least not until he’d made him sweat a little.

“You’re trying to make me sweat,“ _Damn him._ Sherlock ran a finger down the side of John’s face and almost looked hurt when it received no response, “It’s working.”

Well... good.

“I know you’re frustrated about earlier, because I wouldn’t explain about what happened at Terry’s flat. You think by playing silent, you’ll get me to talk,” John removed his gaze from the stain on the wall opposite and allowed himself to look properly at Sherlock, “This doesn’t come easy for me, John, I’m not used to it. I’ve never done this before. I don’t really know what I’m doing and everything is all a bit...”

“Fucking terrifying,” John cut in helpfully.

“Yes...” John’s lips twitched into small smile as Sherlock lifted his hand once more to stroke gentles circles along John’s wrists and up his fingers, “I know you want to know what’s going on in my head and I wish I could articulate it efficiently enough to explain it, but I just can’t because, John, when it comes to you, there are just no words to aptly describe the things you do to me.”

Oh God, that did it. It was all that needed to be said. Just like that, John could literally feel his concerns melt away to be replaced with something else that made him glow so brightly you could have seen him from space. Sherlock probably didn’t know it, but he’d exposed more of the workings of his mind than he probably realised.

Before he could stop himself, his hands hand wound their way into Sherlock’s curls as he tugged him into a kiss he suddenly very desperately needed to happen. He twisted in his chair and pulled Sherlock around by the legs to meet him, laughing as the detective nearly flew from his wheeled seat in his haste to turn without John’s assistance, “Idiot,” John breathed before licking a confident stripe along Sherlock’s lower lip, taking it in his mouth and requesting entry without waiting for an answer.

But it was fine; it was all fine, because Sherlock’s only answer was yes. His entire body seemed to scream it as John moved to stand up from his chair and tighten his grip as their kiss began to pick up momentum. John was quite happily losing himself as his surroundings began to blur out, but they were suddenly brought sharply back into focus as he felt Sherlock’s hands tug at his belt.

He pulled back out of the kiss and tumbled head first into hazy lust-filled eyes. He knew he was a goner, but he had to at least try to be the voice of reason, “What are you doing?”

“I’d have thought that would appear quite obvious, John.”

John rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean. We can’t do this here.”

Sherlock looked up at John complacently, “We can and we are,” Oh God.

At that Sherlock, too, was on his feet, pushing John back into the table by the hips, pulling open his belt and unbuttoning his jeans, during which all John had managed was a couple of sporadic hand movements as he tried in vain to make his hands work fast enough to keep up. Sherlock had set a brutal rhythm attacking John’s mouth and before John really knew what was happening, there were hands in his shorts and his vision was fading in and out.

“Jesus Christ, you don’t mess around, do you?” he managed, weaving his arms in and around Sherlock’s to tug open his trousers.

John felt Sherlock smirk into his jaw but he remained silent as he wrapped long fingers around John’s arousal and shuddered at the groan it drew from the doctor’s lips. At this point, John felt this game was very much one sided, and decided he needed to exact some sort of revenge. He was already struggling with trousers that had far too many buttons, and Sherlock’s ministrations were driving him to distraction so he did the only logical thing he could think of. He sank his teeth in the detective’s neck.

“Ohhh, God,” _Well, that certainly did something._ John took this momentary pause in action to clear his head and pull apart Sherlock’s trousers whilst he could still think straight. He was about ready to push aside some fancy, high end silken boxer shorts only to discover there were none to be found. No shorts of any kind, for that matter.

He pulled back to observe the look of shameless triumph gracing Sherlock’s features, “You planned this didn’t you, you git,” he began.

“No, John, of course I didn’t, but there’s never any harm in being prepared,” before John could respond his mouth was violently claimed again as Sherlock tightened his grip on him and began to work him with renewed vigour. John gasped into Sherlock’s mouth and quickly retaliated, taking the detective in hand matching the rhythm he’d set and revelling in the broken sighs that spilled from Sherlock’s mouth.

John took his free hand and gripped Sherlock’s hip hard. He could feel himself edging closer and closer to a blissful release. Sherlock’s breath was hot on his neck and forming condensation in its wake as the pace of his breathing increased in time with his arousal. John let his head fall back and groaned as Sherlock’s frighteningly skilled fingers worked him hard and it took all his willpower to give as good as he was getting, but he thought he was managing quite well.

As his movements increased in pace and the knot in the pit of his stomach became almost achingly painful, he was vaguely aware Sherlock’s free hand was planted firmly to the side of him, clutching desperately for purchase, eyes clamped shut and breathing erratic as he desperately worked John towards his imminent release. He looked fucking gorgeous like this and John made a mental note to ensure that their next sexual encounter took place in a bedroom for a change. A bedroom with plenty of light because he could watch this all day. It was Sherlock’s glorious orgasm, in fact, that pushed him hopelessly over the edge. He knew he was too far gone when everything began to turn incredibly hazy. His last coherent thought was something along the lines of ‘Holy shit, we’re in the lab, what the fuck are we thinking’, before everything exploded into a wonderful crescendo of colour, light and white noise and... words and numbers and... Holy shit, I’ve got it!

“Ohh, Ohhh, OOOH my God, I’ve got it!” he suddenly cried, still very much in the throws of post-orgasm shudders.

Sherlock laughed and rested his forehead weakly against his, “Got what exactly, dear?”

“No, no, this is important, I just had some sort of fucking... epiphany, Jesus, is this what it feels like to be you?”

Sherlock looked up, suddenly very serious, “What do you mean?”

“Anagrams, they’re fucking anagrams!”

Sherlock studied his face in careful contemplation, “You get very sweary when you’ve had an orgasm... And very nonsensical.”

“No, no, listen to me,” John turned and started desperately searching for something he could wipe his hands on. Grasping up a handful of paper towels, he wiped his hands dry (somewhat) before tossing it at Sherlock, quickly doing up his jeans and leaning over the words still scattered on the table, now a little more strewn around thanks to their impromptu dalliance, “Anagrams. They’re anagrams. I don’t know why I thought of it, just, everything rushed into my head at once. I’d been staring at it earlier and I could see something but I wasn’t sure what and it came to me when you-“ he turned to look at Sherlock who was still delightfully flushed and a little dishevelled, “-did... things,”

Sherlock scoffed at this before wiping his hands and hastily doing up his trousers, “Anagrams, of course, why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you were too busy trying to find some sort of crazy, complex solution. Look-“ John laid out each slip in turn and read them aloud.

“Right, so ‘Bir. Nifty Foe’ Nifty Foe is fifty one, and what did you say Bir meant?”

“One,”

“Right, so One. Fifty One. ‘Weighty Tent’-“

“Twenty Eight, obvious,”

“Ok, how about this one, ‘Sechs. Whatnot Teeny We’, not very imaginative...”

“Six.... Presuming we’re just working with numbers, I can get one and twenty, but that’s it, the other letters don’t make up a number,”

“OK, well, we’ll come back to that, ‘Tinnier Thy’, easy, Thirty Nine,”

“Softer Envy-“

“Seven Forty, next.”

“Hetero Rez,”

“Three Zero, easy.”

“’Ocho. Teeth Tower Zingy’... What was Ocho, again?”

“Eight. The rest is Zero Twenty Eight.”

“OK, so that leaves us with ‘Quatre. Wetter Zone Nervy’”

“Quatre is Four. I can get Zero and Twenty and nothing else...”

John stared hard at the slips, most now with scribbled numbers above them and that’s when he noticed it, “Hold on, a couple of these have degree symbols... They’re coordinates, they have to be... But how the hell are we supposed to put them together? We’ll never get them in the right order, there are too many possibilities-“

“The languages,” Sherlock said suddenly, “The languages are numbers followed by full stops. It’s a clue. An order,“ Sherlock immediately reordered what he could, leaving only a couple left strewn.

“OK, so we’re getting closer, we’ve just got to figure out whether it’s Never, Eat, Shredded or Wheat.”

John watched in amusement as an eyebrow shot up under Sherlock’s curls, “Excuse me?”

“You know, Never, Eat, Shredded, Wheat. North, East, South... Hold on... What letters did you have left over from the slips?”

“REEVN and THAWE... Oh for... Really...”

John laughed, “You’ve got to hand it to him. Right, so that’s North and West then. Come on, we’ve got to have enough to be going on with now.”

 

Sherlock stared hard at what was in front of him, mind processing hard, “There are too many numbers here for just coordinates. North was first so West is where the coordinates finish, what if it’s not just coordinates... maybe a time... a date... Ocho. Eight. That’s the last slip, Twenty Eight... What’s the date today?”

“28th of August,”

“Twenty follows wheat, but comes before the 8th slip, it could dictate a time... It’s already fast approaching 10pm. Considering the killer planted this for us to find and figure out all within a specific timeframe, it can’t be 20.00 or 21.00. Maybe not even 22.00. The only option that fits with the slips is 23.00. So 11pm today. That eliminates a couple more slips, which leaves us with something far easier to assemble...” Sherlock whipped out his phone and immediately started tapping in numbers.

John simply watched, mesmerised.

“Got it. Coordinates, 51° 28' 39'' N 0° 27' 41'' W. Heathrow Airport. Time 23.00 hours on the 28th, which is today. We’ve got one hour.”

John followed Sherlock as he strode over to his computer, still scanning for DNA results on the finger, “Sherlock... Heathrow is gigantic, I’ve got lost there more times than I could count, how do we even know where we’re going? Not to mention what we’re even looking for,”

“We don’t.” The computer suddenly gave an encouraging beep, Sherlock’s eyes widened as he read the results, “But maybe I can tell you who we’re looking for, at least,”

“Who?”

“That finger. It belongs to Michael Creber Senior.”


	10. Chapter 10

Half an hour, one long suffering cab driver and £100 later, Sherlock & John were diving out of a taxi outside Heathrow airport. They had no idea where they were going, what they were looking for, or what they were going to find but John had that flutter in his stomach he got whenever he ran into trouble with Sherlock, and tonight was no exception. In fact, it was even more fluttery than usual...

John followed close as Sherlock rushed into the building only to come to an abrupt stop, causing one army doctor to promptly run straight into the back of one disgruntled consulting detective. Sherlock threw him an indignant look that made him smile (just a little bit) before brushing down his coat and surveying his surroundings.

“The only obvious lead we have is Creber,” he said, pulling off his gloves one finger at a time as he scanned the departures boards in front of him, “If we assume the finger was taken as collateral, he could be trying to make a run for it. There’s a plane departing tonight at exactly 11 o’clock for Fiumicino Airport in Rome. I’d say whoever’s after him knows he’ll take the chance to run. Unless he was given the impression he was _allowed_ to run. Either way, we need to stop him getting on that plane, he’s the only lead we have. The only link between the clues in the safe and the finger. We find him, we find our answer.”

“Right, we need to split up, we’ll cover more ground,” John said, the soldier-going-into-battle in him beaming out of him so much it was blinding, “I’ll look around, see if I spot anything significant, speak to the staff, find out if Creber’s boarded his flight yet. You should speak to security, see what you can pick up off the CCTV. We’re still quite early, he might be milling around duty-free. You need me, you text me, got it?” And with that, John had turned and was ready to stalk off in the opposite direction, only to find himself caught on something...

“No,” came the voice from behind him, “Besides, do you think they’re just going to let me waltz in and do whatever I like?”

A look of bemusement danced across Johns face before he bit it down with a loud clearing of his throat, “Excuse me? Sorry, I thought I was talking to _Sherlock bloody Holmes_. Sherlock Holmes whose got about 30 police badges under his bed? Of course they’ll bloody let you in, it’s you! You could make them believe you’re a sodding genie from a magic lamp if you wanted to.”

“John, we don’t have time for this, we have 30 minutes and it’ll make no difference whether we split up or not. Come on, we need to speak to Security. We can check if Creber’s boarded at the same time.”

John stared up at the Consulting Detective in front of him. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t him at all. The Sherlock _he_ knew regularly stalked off without a backwards glance at John, the most prominent examples that sprung to John’s mind were the countless times he’d left a building only to find Sherlock had disappeared entirely, leaving him to find his own way to wherever they were going. There was definitely a lot John needed to address, but despite Sherlock’s frankly awful arguments, the bloody great oaf was right and they were running out of time. This was going to have to wait.

“Alright, fine,” he said with a shake of his head, “Let’s go.”

Sherlock looked him up and down, clearly deducing a relative Pandora’s box of unspoken issues but visibly refusing to approach any of them at this moment in time. Instead he turned with a twirl of his coat and stalked off in the direction of the reception desk.

“D.I. Lestrade,” Sherlock said to the brunette he was met with, flashing one of his many stolen police badges, “I need you to do two things. I need to know if one of your passengers has boarded yet and I need to see tonight’s surveillance. Right now, if you wouldn’t mind.”

The woman behind the reception desk looked up at him confused, “That’s weird, there was a Lestrade here earlier.”

“What?”

The woman, however, was clearly not listening, “I didn’t realise it was that common a name...”

“Hey!” Sherlock said sharply, snapping his fingers rudely in the girl’s face, “Concentrate! I haven’t got time for this. Why was he here and where did he go?”

The girl blinked crossly at him before drawing in and exhaling a very strained breath. She was obviously used to obnoxious customers, “He was here on a delicate matter. Word is one of the new boys in baggage handling called in regarding something very sensitive. He came alone and he’s speaking to him now, I think.”

“What delicate matter? What do you know?”

“Sherlock,” uttered John, “Not good.”

“Shush,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “The man who called it in? Who is he? How long has he been here? What happened to him?”

“Nobody knows, we’ve never seen him before, it’s like he just appeared here...”

John watched as Sherlock’s eyes widened. He knew something and it wasn’t good.

“Where are they?”

“Am I allowed to tell you? I mean, you’re a police officer, so I can tell you, can’t I?”

“Yes. Yes you can tell me. It is _imperative_ , in fact, that you tell me right this second before I tell your boyfriend that you’re sleeping with your boss.”

John winced but the damage had already been done.

“I’m... How did you..? You could never...”

“Where are they?” Sherlock shouted, both palms on the desk, his ears practically steaming.

“Interview room in Security. Where they take people suspected of smuggling drugs into the country. Follow the corridor down until you get to the departure gates, turn right and it’s the door marked ‘Security’.”

Sherlock nodded and took off towards their destination, soon followed by a very embarrassed and apologetic John Watson.

John knew it was pointless berating Sherlock over his attitude to other people, so he instead pressed on with more important matters.

“What do you know? What’s happened?” Sherlock was already running down a seemingly never ending corridor as John spoke to him, looking at his watch as he did so, “We’ve got 20 minutes, why are we running after Lestrade? If this is a delicate matter, hadn’t you better stay out of it? You’re not exactly the sensitive sort.”

“It’s fake John,” Sherlock shouted, picking up speed, “It’s suspicious, not right, plot holes all over the place.”

“What are you on about?” John shouted after the detective, but the man was already a considerable distance ahead of him, practically charging towards the Security office.

Sherlock practically threw himself at the door shoulder first, breaking it open to be met with darkness. The light from the airport dimly illuminated the first couple of feet of the room but no more as he stood in complete silence, simply observing for long moments.

“John,” he murmured, “Lights if you would.”

John, who had literally just made it in behind him, sighed and began fumbling around for a light switch, feeling terribly nostalgic as he did so.

The second his fingers came into contact with the switch the room flooded with light and revealed a man tied to a chair, hood up and head down in complete silence. John immediately pulled his gun from the back of his jeans (stowed away there before they swooped out of 221b) and aimed it at the mysterious figure. Slowly but surely, both John and Sherlock made their way around the figure, one on each side, until they met next to each other in the middle, staring down at the shrouded figure.

“On the count of 3?” John murmured.

“3,” Sherlock said bluntly before grasping at the material behind the figure’s head and pulling it back, “Hello, Greg,” he greeted Lestrade with an almost-smile and a glimmer in his eyes that told John he’d somehow known all along.

“Who’re you?” the D.I slurred. He looked disorientated and very much out of sorts.

“Greg?” John was unmoving as he surveyed the man slumped in front of them. He was about to squat down to examine him more carefully but Sherlock cut in.

“He’s been drugged,” he said quietly, waving a hand in front of Lestrade’s eyes before slapping him not all that lightly across the face.

“Oi, stop that!” John glared daggers at Sherlock who simply shrugged and stalked away to examine the room. John shook his head, hoping to shake away the discontent that was held there, but it didn’t quite work.

“WhereamI,” Lestrade groaned as his head fell limply to the side, his eyes fluttering open and closed as he did so.

“Heathrow, can you remember anything?”

Lestrade simply grumbled in response as John freed his hands from their ties behind his back.

“So, what’s the diagnosis, Doctor?” came a voice in his ear from over his shoulder, making him jump.

“I wish you wouldn’t bloody do that,” John snapped, muttering something about proximity alarms before shucking one of Lestrade’s arms over his shoulder, ready to heave him to his feet, “A little help would be nice,” he huffed, scrunching his fingers into the material of the hoodie that seemed to drown Greg.

“No,” replied Sherlock, getting ready to leave the room.

“Sherlock! You can’t just leave him here!”

“John, we haven’t got a lot of time, we need to get Creber before he gets on that plane and find out what the hell is going on. Bringing him along will only slow us down.”

“I don’t care, he’s coming. Besides, you know full well that plane won’t be going anywhere for a good while yet, planes rarely leave on time.”

Sherlock sighed dramatically, conceding to John’s point before coming to crouch the other side of Greg, flinging his arm over his shoulder and not waiting for John to give any signal before standing to full height, dragging Greg up with him. The height difference between him and John made things particularly awkward as they struggled along with Lestrade, not to mention the fact that Sherlock insisted they practically drag him through Heathrow in order to get to the right place. John dreaded to think what they must have looked like at that moment in time, practically running through Heathrow with what could not have looked dissimilar to a semi-conscious drunk.

Upon reaching the information desk, confronted once more with the same bemused brunette, Sherlock promptly dropped Lestrade like dead weight, almost flooring John with the sudden extra burden. John simply huffed his disapproval as Sherlock quickly checked his watch before beginning a fresh attack of rude behaviour on the poor girl in front of him.  
“11pm flight to Rome. Passenger name: Michael Creber. I want him hauling off that plane right now.”

“That’s the ‘Lestrade’ from earlier!” she exclaimed, “What happened?”

“Incompetence and lack of thorough research is what happened, now please stop dithering and get on with the job at hand. Michael Creber. 11pm. Flight to Rome. Now.”

This time the girl just nodded and instantly began making phone calls and enquiries. Sherlock tapped his fingers impatiently on the desk as they waited, earning him a disgruntled look from John has he struggled to hold Lestrade up alone.

John shifted awkwardly as Lestrade started to topple over in the opposite direction. He rearranged his hands, accidentally plunging one in Lestrade’s pockets only for his fingers to brush against something very familiar. He felt his heart stop in his chest momentarily in his chest as his grip on Lestrade loosened in favour of the familiar cool metal chain and the disks attached to them. Eventually, Lestrade slipped away, falling to a slump on the desk, John’s hands still entwined in the chain which revealed itself as Greg fell from his grip entirely.

Sherlock contemplated the groaning man next to him with a quirk of his eyebrow before turning towards the ashen doctor behind him, “John, what...”

But Sherlock froze too as his eyes fell upon what John was holding.

John’s heart hammered in his chest as his eyes travelled over the dog tags in front of him, _his_ dog tags. His _army_ dog tags. In Lestrade’s very un-Lestrade hoodie pocket. But it didn’t end there. There was a note attached to the chain. It was curled inside a plastic cylinder attached to his tags by a shining silver clip. John immediately went to open it, but jumped as slender fingers obstructed his efforts. He raised his gaze only to be swallowed up by pained gray eyes that projected a mess of concerned emotions. John clenched set his jaw firmly before loosening his grip on the tags, allowing Sherlock to take them from him and drop them into one of his many pockets.

“Later,” he breathed. John nodded up to him, running a hand through his hair as he did so. He didn’t know what his dog tags were doing in Lestrade’s pocket, but it did not bode well.  
“Sir?” came a voice from behind them, bringing them crashing back down into the task at hand: Creber.

“Hmm? What? What is it?” Sherlock said, spinning away from John and wiping all previous expressions blank from his face. It was scary how easily he could do that as John remained still in a state of confused shock behind him.

“Mr Creber never made it to the flight. The captain was on a deadline, it left 2 minutes ago. No passenger by the name of Creber boarded as the ticket was cancelled last minute.”  
Sherlock banged his fist on the desk, causing all surrounding parties to jump (apart from Lestrade, who was still dazed and slowly sinking down onto the floor from the Reception desk). John sighed and came to stand beside him, one elbow on the desk as he turned to face the disgruntled man on his left.

“Now what?”

Sherlock sighed, leaning on both elbows, fingers pressed together under his chin in thought. Something told John he didn’t really know.

xXx

 _This is quite the predicament_ , Sherlock thought to himself, knees pulled tightly into his chest as they sat in 221b. They had not long returned and John’s dog tags were laid out on the coffee table in front of them, note untouched. Lestrade had been collected from Heathrow and the journey back had been in complete silence, for John at least. Sherlock was completely lost in a world of his own, deep in thought and staring blankly out the window, mind racing a mile a minute.

“Sherlock?” came an impatient voice to his left.

“Hmm?”

“I said are we going to look at it yet?” John was really quite good at hiding his emotions when he wanted to, but not from Sherlock. Never from Sherlock. He could still see the anxiety flicker behind his eyes as his gaze jumped back and forth between the tags and Sherlock.

Sherlock sat himself forward, letting long limbs relax into comfort as he leaned towards the tags and scooped them up.

“Don’t you think I should be the one to read it?” John said, shuffling awkwardly in his seat, “They _are_ my tags...”

“No,” Sherlock murmured simply, “I’ll read it first.”

John scoffed, “Why? What for?”

“Because I don’t know what it says. I want to read it first, then I’ll decide whether you should read it.”

John rose to his feet, coming to a halt in front of the detective before crossing his arms as he loomed over him, “You’re not my keeper, Sherlock. I don’t need protecting, never have done, never will do. Look, I don’t know where all this sudden molly-coddling has come from but it stops. Right now.”

Sherlock glared up at him for a moment with a look so fierce it caused John to lean back ever so slightly. John just didn’t understand, maybe he never would, but as far as Sherlock was concerned, the less he knew the better. John might not know it but he meant an awful lot. He was Sherlock’s calm in a storm and he needed him now more than ever to remain unaffected by anything that may or may not happen over the coming days. Sherlock had already decided that the fact it was John’s tags meant that John was a target; the note was just a bonus to confirm his suspicions.

Sherlock watched as John dropped to his knees in front of him, placing himself just between his thighs with an elbow on each knee, eyes telling far more than his straight face ever could.

“Sherlock. I think I understand this, I do, but I won’t let you wrap me in cotton wool. Nothing has changed here. I haven’t changed, you haven’t changed. The only thing that has is the dynamics of our relationship... Quite significantly, I’ll admit, but that’s the only thing, Sherlock, the only thing.”

Sherlock considered him for a moment. His heart was thrumming an aching beat in his chest as he stared into familiar eyes.

“John...” he began, only to be cut off sharply as John snatched the tags from his grip. Sherlock sat open mouthed for the briefest off seconds before springing to his feet. “John!”

But John wasn’t listening, he was too busy pulling the cap from the container and fishing the note out. Sherlock had already resigned himself as powerless to stop the situation, so instead flopped back onto the sofa, pinching the bridge between his eyes as he waited for the world to collapse around them.

He listened to the eerie silence in the room as John stood reading through the note he had now successfully retrieved.

“Right. Right, OK. OK,” John turned himself around and sat down slowly in his usual spot, “Right...”

“John,” Sherlock’s voice was barely a whisper as he spoke, he could read everything that was in that note from John’s expression alone.

“Right,” John said once more, “I think I need a cup of tea,” John hastily threw the note to one side before leaving the room and heading straight for the Kitchen.

Sherlock sighed before rising to his feet, scooping up the note and following John, reading it as he went.

 _John,_

 _What a pity it’s you reading this. I should have known you’d wrestle it out of Sherlock’s hands. So curious! But curiosity killed the cat, darling, and it will kill you, too.  
You’re next, Johnny-boy. This was never about Creber. Creber is just a desperate man living in desperate times, getting himself caught up playing with the big boys. The little man didn’t even realise how perfectly I utilised him for my own gain. It all worked out so PERFECTLY, don’t you think?_

 _Oh, and Johnny? Don’t bother hiding. I will find you and there will be nothing your little boyfriend can do about it._

 _J xxx_

 _PS) Evening Sherlock, don’t feel too sad, Daddy will see you soon, he hasn’t forgotten about his little consulting detective._

Sherlock shivered as he read the last line. Moriarty.

He was violently thrown back to the night at the pool. The night less than a year ago that resulted in the disappearance of the psychopath now very much back in their lives. Since that night, not a trace of Jim Moriarty was found anywhere and as much as Sherlock, very convincingly, portrayed otherwise, Moriarty had always been lurking in the back of his head, smiling smugly at him from the place in his brain he had so lovingly burrowed himself into.

“John,” Sherlock began.

“Look, Sherlock, it could have been a lot worse. That was nothing, really, barely even a threat, nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about? Don’t be so obtuse, John. The man has made a threat against your life.”

John turned around to face him, both palms on the counter behind him “People make threats against yours every day,” his mouth was a wiry smirk that was convincing nobody, least of all Sherlock.

“I’ll speak to Mycroft, see if we can get you into hiding somewhere...”

“What?” John practically spluttered on his own shock, “Are you serious? Right, this has gone far enough, what the bloody hell has gotten into you?”

Sherlock looked quite taken aback as he studied the angry doctor in front of him, “What do you mean?”

“You know full well, Sherlock. Ever since we started up this... this...” Sherlock watched in quiet bemusement as John struggled for a word, all the while waving a hand violently back and forth between the two of them, “Thing. You’ve just... Gone _insane!_ ”

Sherlock scoffed, “I’m not _insane_ , John, I am trying to be practical. I’m worried for your safety and I’m...”

“Worried for my safety? You never worried much before!”

Sherlock actually felt something cold wrap itself around his heart for a moment as he considered what John had just said to him, “John,” he began, but the words escaped him. He cursed inwardly at his own inability to let his heart do the talking when the situation called for it the most. Being so brain centred all these years had very unfortunate side effects, especially when being in a relationship revolved far more around the heart than the head.

John’s expression softened slightly but he stayed exactly where he was, steadfast and waiting for an explanation that Sherlock was visibly struggling to give.

“John. You are very important to me. You have been from the start and you have to understand that I...” Sherlock couldn’t hide the cringe. He wasn’t good at this at all, “I can’t lose you, John. I don’t do this. I never do this. But I like it and I don’t want it to be over before it’s started. I know I’m probably being a little too custodial but... I’m selfish, John, and I’d much rather keep you to myself as you are then put you at risk and have you gone forever.”

Sherlock stared hard at the floor. This was horrible. Absolutely horrible. He didn’t ever do this, this was alien, this wasn’t him. He deduced, he didn’t explain. In a perfect world, he wouldn’t have to say these things because John would already know them. John would understand perfectly and do exactly as he said because he would see plain and simple the fear that Sherlock could hide from everyone bar himself. So he stood, completely silent, repeating everything he just said over and over for posterity. There was no way he would ever be able to delete this conversation.

He was torn from his pained thoughts, however, by callused hands as they made their way up the column of his throat to cradle his face in their warmth.

“You’re a bloody idiot, you do realise that, don’t you?” John said into Sherlock’s shoulder as he pulled him into him, “I think you forget sometimes that there are people in the world other than you.”

Sherlock pulled back quickly, “No, John, didn’t you-“

“I heard,” John said, stroking at Sherlock’s jaw with his fingers as his thumb found its way over his mouth, “What I mean is you’re not the only one who-” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “Goes a little bit insane with worry sometimes.”

Sherlock blinked at the sincerity in John’s eyes as he continued.

“The amount of times I’ve had to watch you go racing off into God knows what is terrifying. And are you forgetting the very recent incident in which you were beaten to shit whilst tied to a chair?”

“John, that was entirely diff-“

“No it wasn’t, and you know it wasn’t,” John said sternly, “You need to stop thinking that because it’s you, it’s different. It’s not different. I want this to last, too. I don’t want you to get hurt, I don’t want to lose you, but I can’t very well lock you in a room to protect you from the world because you’d bloody hate that, and I’d hate it too because then you’d be unhappy and you would drive me insane.”

Sherlock smirked at the notion, but said nothing.

“All of this,” John continued, “It’s all quite normal... Well, OK, we’re not normal. Abnormal, if anything, but we’re normal in our abnormality.”

“John, that sentence doesn’t even-“

“Shush,” John whispered, causing Sherlock’s skin to dance under the words, “There will always be danger, love, we can’t guard each other from it forever.”

Sherlock blushed at the endearment as he thought these words over, but having John in such close proximity was very distracting.

“John,” Sherlock began again. He knew he had words he needed to say, he just needed to figure out what they were.

John simply hushed him, dropping the lightest of kisses on his lips before continuing his oral descent over his neck, causing Sherlock’s breath to hitch and his thoughts to derail entirely. He couldn’t think straight when John was so close, his breath cascading over the junctures in his throat, tongue tasting him and teeth scraping gently across his skin. It was all really quite lovely and perfect and _Yes, Yes, more of that, I love you, I love you, I love you. No._ No. Not yet. Not until this was over. Not until he knew that...

A shrill noise filled the room, causing them both to spring apart like lovers caught behind the bike sheds. John was a delicious shade of pink and it was all Sherlock could do not to ignore the vibration in his pocket and snog John as thoroughly as he could, but he knew who would be on the other end of the line.

“What?” Sherlock reached out for John as he answered his phone. He wasn’t quite ready to give up their clinch so pulled him in close, stroking the tip of his nose along John’s and allowing his eyes to fall closed as he listened carefully to the calamity that was quietly exploding on the other end of the phone.

“Sherlock? Sherlock, is that you? Why did you ring me?”

“You rang me. Shouldn’t you be sleeping this off?”

“Sleep what off? Oh, no, I’m fine. Look, we have informa... inform...”

Sherlock rolled his eyes as he heard a clattering of objects down the phone. Lestrade was quite clearly still suffering the effects of the drugs he was given, but being the awkward sod that he was, he had clearly decided he was fit to go back to work to try and get some work done. _Idiot._

“Freak?” came a shrill voice suddenly.

“Donnovan. To what do I owe such displeasure?”

“Shut it. Look, I’m ringing with information and as you can see, the D.I’s not in any fit state to be giving it to you.”

“Obvious,” Sherlock sighed, stroking circles into John’s skin with his fingertips as he waited for useful information to present itself.

“I can’t believe you’re telling him this. We don’t _need_ him, Sally, we can do this ourselves,” came a familiar voice in the background the other end.

“Ah, I see Anderson’s there, too. Lovely,” Sherlock drawled.

Sally sighed, “Look, do you want the information or not? I don’t like having to come running to you, but we’re at a dead end, and I’m thinking you probably know something we don’t.”

“What makes you say that?” Sherlock’s voice was dripping with mock-innocence.

“Because it’s you, do I really need to elaborate?”

“Well it might be nice if-“

“Look, just shut up and listen. Creber’s turned up dead.”

Sherlock snapped out of his moment with John almost instantly, his fingers freezing in their place on his skin. _Bugger_. Whatever information Creber had would have died with him... Unless...

“Where?”

“In his bloody house, of all places.”

“Text me the address, I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” with that, Sherlock hung up the phone and turned on his heel to grab his coat.

“Development?”

Sherlock nodded curtly, pulling his scarf around his neck, “They’ve found Creber. He’s dead. The body was found at his house.”

John nodded, “You think maybe there’s something significant there.”

“It’s Moriarty. Of course there is,” Sherlock smirked, but the look in John’s eyes was grave. He lost himself in his counterpart momentarily before crossing the room and taking his face in his hands, kissing him firmly on the forehead, “Ready to stare danger in the face and laugh?” he said suddenly.

John laughed, shaking his head as he spoke, “Always.”


End file.
